MR.  SQUEM 


SOME  MALE 


TRIANGLES 


Arthur  Russell  Taylor 


MR.    SQUEM    AND    SOME 
MALE    TRIANGLES 

ARTHUR  RUSSELL  TAYLOR 


fINTV.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELE9 


MR.  SQUEM  AND 

SOME  MALE 

TRIANGLES 

BY 

ARTHUR  RUSSELL  TAYLOR 


'Frankly  accept  the  creatureship' 


NEW  XSJr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


(Ql'fc 


L.i;  U  It:    VV  K  ICKI    'o  IK',  r  : 


Copyright,  1918, 
By  Georgt  H.  Doran  Company 


Copyright,  1917, 1918, 
By  The  Atlantic  Monthly  Company 


Copyright,  1917, 
By  The  Independent 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


IZ   7H; 


TO  MY  WIFE 


2133273 


CONTENTS 

MR.  SQUEM 

I  PAGE 

A  RAILWAY  EPISODE:    GOD  AND  CULTURE         11 

II 

A  COUNTRY-HOUSE  EPISODE:  BEING  A  GEN- 
TLEMAN      .       .       .       .       .       .       't       .        .35 

III 
A  PLAYHOUSE  EPISODE:  THE  SEX  INSTINCT      57 

IV 

AN  AUTOMOBILE  EPISODE:    "UP  TO  THE 
GOOD  MAN" 71 

SOME  MALE  TRIANGLES 

V 

MR.  THORNTON 
THE  REVEREND  MR.  BOWLES      THE  DRIVER      93 

IV 

MR.  SMILEY 
MR.  HUNTER  MR.  BRADLEY    107 

VII 

JUDGE  ARBUTHNOT 

MR.  JONES  DR.  KENNEDY    125 

vii 


Vlll  CONTENTS 


VIII  PAGE 

THE  REVEREND  AMBROSE  HORTON 
MR.  THORPE  THE  BRAKEMAN    135 

IX 

THE  REVEREND  JUSTIN  HUNT 
DOCTOR  HENDERSON  MR.  BLOGGS    141 


MR.  SQUEM 


MR.  SQUEM  AND  SOME  MALE 
TRIANGLES 


A  RAILWAY  EPISODE:  GOD  AND  CULTURE 

WHY  do  we  go  on  perpetuating 
an  uncomfortable  breed?" 
The  man  who  was  shaving  at  the 
mirror-panelled  door  of  the  Pullman 
smoking   compartment   looked    at   his 
questioner  on  the  leather  seat  opposite. 
"Give  it  up,"  he  answered.    "Why 
is  a  hen?" 

The  first  man  rapped  his  pipe  empty 
on  the  edge  of  a  cuspidor. 
"You  answer  the  question,"  he  said, 
,11 


12  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

"in  the  only  possible  way — by  asking 
another." 

"Right,"  answered  the  shaver,  and 
began  to  run  the  hot  water. 

A  closely  built  man,  in  a  suit  so  heav- 
ily striped  as  to  seem  stripes  before 
it  was  a  suit,  lurched  into  the  compart- 
ment and  settled  himself  to  his  paper 
and  cigar. 

"That  monkey-on-a-stick, "  he  pres- 
ently broke  out,  "is  still  taking  good 
money  away  from  the  asses  who  go  to 
hear  him  rant  about  God  and  Hell  and 
all  the  rest,  up  in  Boston.  I  am  so 
damn  tired  of  him,  and  of  that  rich 
rough-neck  Freeze.  It's  the  limit." 

"Pretty  much,"  said  the  man  with 
the  pipe.  "I  was  reading  about  the 
Belgians  just  before  you  came  in,  and 
when  I  jumped  away  from  them  I  lit 
on  some  things  about  Poland.  Then  I 
wondered  aloud  to  this  gentleman  why 
we  go  on  multiplying — increasing  such 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  13 

an  uncomfortable  breed.  Modoc  gods 
and  degenerate  millionaires  make  one 
wonder  more. ' ' 

"What  is  your  line,  may  I  ask?'*  in- 
quired the  stripe-suited  man. 

"Keligion." 

"The  hell — I  beg  pardon.  If  you 
mean  you're  a  preacher,  or  something 
like  that,  all  I've  got  to  say  is,  you're 
a  funny  one.  It's  your  job,  isn't  it,  to 
be  dead  sure  that  everything's  all 
right,  or  somehow  going  to  be  all  right 
— no  matter  about  all  the  mussed-up- 
ness?  Yes,  that's  certainly  your  job. 
Yet  here  you  are,  asking  why  we  go  on 
stocking  the  world  with  kids.  I  might 
ask  that, — I'm  in  rubber  tires, — but  not 
you.  Yes,  I  might — only  I  don't." 

The  man  who  had  been  shaving  had 
resumed  his  tie,  collar,  and  coat,  and 
now  lighted  a  cigarette. 

"I  lay  my  money,"  he  said,  "on  one 
thing:  that,  if  men  let  themselves  go, 


14  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

they  wind  up  shortly  with  God — or 
with  what  would  be  God  if  there  were 
any.  You've  come  to  it  early — through 
the  Ledger.  You'd  have  got  to  it  soon- 
er or  later,  though,  if  you'd  been  talk- 
ing about  hunting-dogs — provided 
you'd  have  let  yourselves  go." 

"Well,  now,"  asked  the  closely  built 
man,  "what  is  your  line?" 

"Education." 

"High-brow  company!  Seems  to  me 
the  pair  of  you  ought  to  be  silencers  for 
a  plain  business  man  like  me.  Rubber  is 
my  line — not  how  the  world  is  run.  My 
opinion  on  that  is  small  change,  sure. 
Yet  I  think  it  ought  to  be  run, — the 
world,  I  mean, — even  if  it's  mussed- 
up  to  the  limit,  and  I  think  it's  up 
to  us  to  keep  it  running.  The  parson 
here — if  he  is  a  parson — asks  why  we 
should ;  that  is,  if  I  get  him.  And  then 
I  think  there's  a  manager  of  it  all  in 
the  central  office — a  manager,  under- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  15 

stand,  though  he  never  seems  to  show 
up  around  the  works,  and  certainly 
does  seem  to  have  some  of  the  darn- 
edest ways.  The  professor  here — if  he 
is  a  professor — doesn't  sense  any  man- 
ager ;  that  is,  if  I  get  him  straight,  with 
his  '  if  there  were  any. '  That  was  what 
you  said,  wasn't  it?  I'm  a  picked  chick- 
en on  religion  and  education,  but,  hon- 
est, both  those  ideas  would  mean  soft 
tires  for  me — yes,  sir,  soft  tires." 

* '  Broad  Street,  gentlemen, ' '  said  the 
porter  at  the  door. 

The  Reverend  Allan  Dare  walked 
away  from  the  train  and  down  the 
street.  He  was  Episcopally  faced  and 
Episcopally  trim,  and  he  was  having 
considerable  difficulty  in  holding  his 
universe  together.  This  is  not  pleasant 
at  forty-two,  when  you  want  your  uni- 
verse held  together  and  things  settled 
and  calm.  He  had  an  uncomfortable 


16  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

sense  that  this  difficulty  had  jolted  into 
plain  sight  on  the  car. 

"Ass!"  he  addressed  himself  briefly. 
"To  let  your  sag  and  unsettlement 
loose  in  that  way !  To  say  such  a  thing 
as  you  said,  and  in  such  a  place!  To 
parade  your  momentary  distrust  of 
life !  Ass — oh,  ass !  * ' 

He  said — or  thought — a  Prayer- 
Book  collect,  one  which  seemed  rather 
suited  to  asses,  and  continued, — 

"I  suppose  I'm  three-tenths  sag— no 
more ;  and  '  He  knoweth  whereof  we  are 
made,'  and  what  a  devil  of  a  world  it 
is  to  be  in  just  now.  But  that  rubber 
man  on  the  car — he  isn't  sag  at  all. 
Heavens,  his  crudeness!  His  beastly 
clothes,  and  the  bare  shaved  welt 
around  the  back  of  his  neck,  and  that 
awful  seal  ring!  But  he's  fastened. 
Life  is  worth  pushing  at  and  cheering 
for — and  there's  a  manager,  if  he  has 
'the  darnedest  ways.'  I'd  give  some- 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  17 

thing  for  an  every-minute  mood  like 
that — a  carrying  night-and-day  sure- 
ness  like  that.  He's  not  illuminated — 
lucky  dog!" 

Professor  William  Emory  Browne 
had  changed  cars  and  was  continuing 
his  journey.  In  his  lap  lay  a  volume  of 
essays  just  put  forth  by  a  member  of 
his  craft,  a  college  professor.  He 
opened  it, — it  chanced  at  page  27, — and 
his  eye  was  caught  by  the  name  of  his 
own  specialty.  He  read : — 

"Philosophy  is  the  science  which 
proves  that  we  can  know  nothing  of  the 
soul.  Medicine  is  the  science  which 
tells  that  we  know  nothing  of  the  body. 
Political  Economy  is  that  which  teach- 
es that  we  know  nothing  of  the  laws  of 
wealth;  and  Theology  the  critical  his- 
tory of  those  errors  from  which  we  de- 
duce our  ignorance  of  God." 


18  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

"Confound  it!"  ejaculated  Profes- 
sor Browne,  and  closed  the  book. 

"Room  for  one  morel"  inquired  a 
voice,  and  the  rubber-tire  man  slid  in- 
to the  seat. 

"I  just  pulled  off  a  little  thing  out 
here,"  he  said,  "that  ought  to  put  a 
small  star  in  my  crown.  A  down-and- 
out — a  tough  looker — says  to  me, 
'Please,  mister,  give  me  a  dime.  I'm 
hungry. '  And  I  says  to  him,  *  Get  out ! 
What  you  want  is  a  good  drink, — go 
get  it,'  and  slips  him  a  quarter.  Talk 
about  gratitude!  To  think  there  are 
men — you  know  it  and  I  know  it  and 
he  was  afraid  of  it — who'd  have  steer- 
ed him  to  a  quick-lunch  and  put  him 
against  soft-boiled  eggs!" 

"  'Man's  inhumanity  to  man'  " 

' '  Sure !  Nothing  but  that  ever  makes 
me  any  trouble  about  things.  Tear 
ninety,  George,x" — this  to  the  conduc- 
tor,— "and  burn  this  panetella  some 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  19 

time.  You  said  you  were  in  education," 
he  went  on.  "I've  just  blown  myself 
to  a  Universal  History — five  big  vol- 
umes, with  lots  of  maps  and  pictures 
and  flags  of  all  nations  and  hanging 
gardens  of  Babylon  and  things  like 
that.  Gave  down  thirty-five  for  it,  and 
my  name  is  printed — Peter  B.  Squem 
— on  the  first  page  of  every  book. 
Now," — Mr.  Squem  grew  quite  earn- 
est,— "you'd  say,  wouldn't  you,  that  if 
a  man  could  take  those  books  down, — 
chew  them  up,  you  understand,  and 
take  them  down, — he'd  have  an  educa- 
tion? Not  the  same,  of  course,  as  nor- 
mal school  or  college,  and  yet  an  edu- 
cation." 

"I  think,  if  you  know  what's  good 
for  you,  you  will  steer  clear  of  what 
you  call  an  education.  I  think  I  should 
stick  to  rubber  tires,  and  a  few  com- 
fortable certainties — and  peace." 

Mr.  Squem  stared.    "How's  that?" 


20  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

he  inquired.  "Education  is  your  line, 
you  were  saying,  and  yet  you  queer 
your  stuff.  I'd  get  quick  word  from 
the  house,  if  I  handled  Mercury  tires 
that  way." 

"But  you  wouldn't,"  rejoined  Pro- 
fessor Browne,  "you  wouldn't,  because 
tires  mean  something.  Tires  are  your 
life-preserver — they  are  shaped  like 
life-preservers,  aren't  they?" 

"You've  got  me  going,"  said  Mr. 
Squem,  "and  no  mistake.  I  don't  mind 
telling  you  I'd  hoped  to  get  some  hunch 
from  you — on  education.  You  see,  my 
clothes  are  right,  I  always  have  a  room 
with  bath,  and  I  get  two  hundred  a 
month  and  fifty  on  the  side.  I  read  the 
papers — and  the  magazine  section  on 
Sunday — and  I  got  through  four  books 
last  year.  And  yet  there's  something 
not  there — by  Keefer,  not  there!  I'd 
give  something  to  get  it  there — to  slide 
it  under,  somehow,  and  bring  the  rest 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  21 

of  me  up  to  regular  manicuring  and 
ice-cream  forks  and  the  way  my  clothes 
fit!" 

Mr.  Squem  was  interrupted  in  the 
expression  of  this  craving.  There  was 
a  tremendous  jar;  the  car  tore  and 
bumped  with  an  immense  pounding 
over  the  ties,  then  careened  and 
sprawled  down  a  short  bank  and  set- 
tled on  its  side.  People  who  have  been 
through  such  an  experience  will  require 
no  description.  To  others  none  can  be 
given.  In  the  bedlam  chaos  and  jum- 
ble, and  chorus  of  shrieks  and  smash- 
ing glass,  Professor  Browne,  strug- 
gling up  through  the  bodies  which  had 
been  hurled  upon  him,  was  conscious  of 
a  pain  almost  intolerably  sharp  in  his 
leg,  and  then  of  a  sort  of  striped  whirl- 
wind which  seemed  to  be  everywhere 
at  once,  extricating,  calming,  ordering, 
comforting — and  swearing.  It  was  like 
a  machine-gun: — 


22  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

"Keep  your  clothes  on,  nothing's  go- 
ing to  bite  you — just  a  little  shake-up 
— Yes,  chick,  we'll  find  your  ma — No, 
you  don't  climb  over  those  people;  sit 
down  or  I'll  help  you — To  hell  with 
your  valise,  pick  up  that  child ! — There 
go  the  axes ;  everybody  quiet  now,  just 
where  he  is — You  with  the  side-whisk- 
ers get  back,  back,  hear  me! — Now, 
children  first,  hand  'em  along — women 
next,  so — men  last — Why  didn't  you 
say  you  was  a  doctor?  Get  out  there 
quick,  some  of  those  people  have  got 
broke  and  need  you!" 

Professor  Browne  was  one  of  these 
last.  Lifted  by  Peter  Squem  and  a 
very  scared  brakeman,  he  lay  on  two 
Pullman  mattresses  at  the  side  of  the 
track,  waiting  for  the  rabbit-faced 
country  doctor  to  reach  him.  He  was 
suffering  very  much, — it  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  never  really  known  pain 
before, — but  his  attention  went  to  a 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  23 

white-haired  lady  near  by — a  slight, 
slender  woman,  with  breeding  written 
all  over  her.  She  had  made  her  way 
from  the  drawing-room  of  the  Pullman, 
and  leaned  heavily  upon  her  maid,  in  a 
state  approaching  collapse.  Professor 
Browne  was  impressed  by  her  air  of 
distinction  even  in  the  midst  of  his 
pain.  Then  he  saw  a  striped  arm-  sup- 
portingly  encircle  her,  and  a  hand  dom- 
inated by  an  enormous  seal  ring  press 
to  her  lips  an  open  bottle  of  Scotch. 

"Let  it  trickle  down,  auntie — right 
down.  It's  just  what  you  need,"  said 
Peter  B.  Squem. 

1  'What  did  you  think  of  when  the 
car  stopped  rolling?" 

Professor  Browne,  lying  in  his  bed, 
asked  this  question  of  Mr.  Squem,  sit- 
ting at  its  side.  The  latter  had  got  the 
professor  home  to  his  house  and  his 
housekeeper  after  the  accident  the  day 


24  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

before,  had  found  the  best  surgeon  in 
town  and  stood  by  while  he  worked, 
had  in  a  dozen  ways  helped  a  bad  busi- 
ness to  go  as  well  as  possible,  and  now, 
having  remained  over  night,  was  await- 
ing the  hour  of  his  train. 

4 'Think  of!  Nothing.  No  time.  I 
was  that  crosseyed  boy  you've  heard 
about — the  one  at  the  three-ringed  cir- 
cus. Did  you  see  that  newly-wed  roos- 
ter— I'll  bet  he  was  that — the  one 
with  the  celluloid  collar?  'Good-bye, 
Maude ! '  he  yells,  and  then  tries  to  butt 
himself  through  the  roof.  He  wouldn't 
have  left  one  sound  rib  in  the  car  if  I 
hadn't  pinned  him.  No,  I  hadn't  any- 
time to  think." 

He  produced  and  consulted  a  watch 
— one  that  struck  the  professor  as  be- 
ing almost  too  loud  an  ornament  for 
a  Christmas  tree.  An  infant's  face 
showed  within  as  the  case  opened. 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  25 

"Your  baby?"  inquired  Professor 
Browne. 

"Never.  Not  good  enough.  This  kid 
I  found — where  do  you  suppose?  On 
a  picture-postal  at  a  news-stand.  The 
picture  was  no  good — except  the  kid; 
and  I  cut  him  out,  you  see.  Say,  do 
you  know  the  picture  was  painted  by  a 
man  out  in  Montana?  Yes,  sir,  Mon- 
tana. They  had  the  cards  made  over 
in  Europe  somewhere, — Dagoes,  likely, 
— and  when  they  put  his  name  on  it, 
they  didn't  do  a  thing  to  that  word 
Montana.  Some  spelling!" 

"Why,  what  you  have  there,"  said 
the  professor,  taking  the  watch  with 
interest,  "is  the  Holy  Child  of  Andrea 
Mantegna's  Circumcision, — it's  in  the 
Uffizi  at  Florence.  Singularly  good  it 
is,  too.  I'm  very  much  wrapped  up  in 
the  question,  raised  in  a  late  book,  of 
Mantegna's  influence  upon  Giovanni 
Bellini.  There's  a  rather  fine  point 


26  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

made  in  connection  with  another  child 
in  this  same  picture — a  larger  one, 
pressing  against  his  mother's  knees." 

Mr.  Squem  was  perfectly  uncompre- 
hending. "Come  again,"  he  remarked. 
"No,  you  needn't,  either,  for  I  don't 
know  anything  about  the  rest  of  the 
picture.  I  told  you  it  was  no  good. 
There  was  an  old  party  in  a  funny 
bath-robe  and  with  heavy  Belshazzars, 
I  remember — but  the  picture  was 
this." 

He  rose  and  began  to  get  into  his 
overcoat. 

"There's  one  thing  about  this  kid," 
he  said,  in  a  casual  tone  which  some- 
how let  earnestness  through.  "I  know 
a  man, — he  travels  out  of  Phillie,  and 
he's  some  booze-artist  and  other  things 
that  go  along, — who's  got  one  of  those 
little  *  Josephs.'  You  know,  those  lit- 
tle dolls  that  Catholics  tote  around? 
Separate  him  from  it?  Not  on  your 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  27 

life.  Why,  he  missed  it  one  night  on  a 
sleeper,  and  he  cussed  and  reared 
around,  and  made  the  coon  rout  every- 
body out  till  he  found  it.  It's  luck,  you 
see.  Now  this  kid" — Mr.  Squem  was 
pulling  on  his  gloves — "isn't  luck,  but 
he  works  like  luck.  He  talks  to  me,  un- 
derstand, and" — here  a  pause — "he 
puts  all  sorts  of  cussedness  on  the 
blink.  You  can't  look  at  him  and  be  an 
Indian.  I  was  making  the  wrong  sort 
of  date  in  Trenton  one  day,  and  I  saw 
him  just  in  time — sent  the  girl  word 
I'd  been  called  out  of  town.  I  was  fig- 
uring on  the  right  time  to  pinch  a  man 
in  the  door, — he  'd  done  me  dirty, — and 
I  saw  him  again.  Good-night !  I  'm  nev- 
er so  punk  that  he  doesn't  ginger  me — 
doesn't  look  good  to  me.  The  manage- 
ment is  mixed  up  with  him — and  I  hook 
up  to  him.  Here's  the  taxi.  So  long, 
professor. — Rats!  I  haven't  done  one 


28  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

little  thing.     Good  luck  to  your  game 
leg!" 

It  was  Sunday  morning,  and  service 
was  under  way  in  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Faith.  For  the  thousandth  time 
the  Reverend  Allan  Dare  had  dearly 
beloveded  his  people,  assembled  to  the 
number  of  four  hundred  before  him,  ex- 
horting them  in  such  forthright  Eng- 
lish as  cannot  be  written  nowadays,  not 
to  dissemble  nor  cloak  their  sins  before 
God,  and  to  accompany  him  unto  the 
throne  of  the  heavenly  grace.  He  had 
had  a  sick  feeling,  as  he  read  this  ex- 
hortation, so  full  of  pound,  rhythm, 
heart-search,  and  splendid  good  sense, 
to  the  courteous  abstractedness  in  the 
pews. 

"Heavens!"  he  had  thought,  "once 
this  burnt  in!"  He  had  wanted  to 
shriek — or  fire  a  pistol  in  the  air — and 
then  crush  the  meaning  into  his  people ; 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  29 

crush  God  into  them,  yes,  and  into  him- 
self. 

He  was  four-tenths  sag  that  morning 
— the  Rev.  Allan  Dare.  In  the  Jubi- 
late, a  small  choir-boy — a  phenomenon 
who  was  paid  a  thousand  a  year,  and 
was  responsible  for  the  presence  of  not 
a  few  of  the  four  hundred — had  sung 
"Be  ye  sure  that  the  Lord  he  is  God," 
to  the  ravishment  of  the  congregation 
— not  of  the  rector,  who  stood  looking 
dead  ahead.  The  First  Lesson  had  been 
all  about  Jonadab,  the  son  of  Rechab, 
and  drinking  no  wine — frightful  inept- 
ness!  What  could  it  mean  to  any 
one!  how  help  any  one?  Here 
was  Life,  with  all  its  cruel  tan- 
gles, tighter  and  more  choking  every 
day.  Here  was  Arnold's  darkling 
plain,  and  the  confused  alarms  and  the 
ignorant  armies  clashing  by  night. 

There  came  back  to  Dare  the  creed 
he  had  heard  in  the  smoking  compart- 


80  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

ment:  "I  think  it  ought  to  be  run,— 
the  world, — even  if  it's  mussed-up  to 
the  limit,  and  I  think  it's  up  to  us  to 
keep  it  running.  I  think  there's  a  man- 
ager of  it  all  in  the  central  office — a 
manager,  understand,  though  he  never 
seems  to  show  up  around  the  works, 
and  certainly  does  seem  to  have  some 
of  the  darnedest  ways." 

"0  God!"  breathed  Alla'n  Dare, 
1  'there  are  so  many  things — so  many 
things ! ' ' 

It  was  the  same  Sunday.  Professor 
William  Emory  Browne  was  for  the 
first  time  on  crutches,  and  stood  sup- 
ported by  them  at  his  window. 

"Back  again,"  he  ruminated.  "I  can 
probably  drive  to  my  classes  in  another 
week.  Then  the  same  old  grind,  show- 
ing ingenuous  youth — who  fortunately 
will  not  see  it — how  "the  search  hath 
taught  me  that  the  search  is  vain. ' '  Ho, 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  31 

hum !  How  very  kind,  that  Mr.  Squem, 
— he  did  so  much  for  me, — and  how 
very  funny!  I  should  like  to  produce 
him  at  the  seminar — with  his  just-right 
clothes,  his  dream  of  culture  via  his 
Universal  History,  his  approach  to  re- 
ality through  a  picture  postal  card!'* 

He  turned  on  himself  almost  savage- 
ly. Then,— 

"What  the  devil  are  you  patronising 
him  for?  Don't  you  see  that  he  is  hook- 
ed to  something  and  you  are  not,  that 
he  is  warm  and  you  are  freezing,  that 
he  is  part  of  the  wave, — the  wave,  man, 
— and  that  you  are  just  a  miserable, 
tossing  clot?" 

It  was  the  same  Sunday.  Mr.  Squem 
sat  in  his  room — extremely  dennish, 
smitingly  red  as  to  walls,  oppressive 
with  plush  upholstery.  A  huge  deer- 
head,  jutting  from  over  the  mantel, 
divided  honours  with  a  highly-coloured 


32  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

September  Morn,  affrontingly  framed. 
On  a  shelf  stood  a  small  bottle.  It 
contained  a  finger  of  Mr.  Squem,  am- 
putated years  before,  in  alcohol. 

On  the  knees  of  the  owner  of  the 
room  was  Volume  One  of  the  Universal 
History — Number  32,  so  red-ink  fig- 
ures affirmed,  of  a  limited  edition  of 
five  hundred  sets.  Mr.  Squem 's  name 
was  displayed,  in  very  large  Old  Eng- 
lish on  the  fly-leaf,  and  above  was  "an 
empty  oval  wherein  his  portrait  might 
be  placed. 

"No  use,"  soliloquised  the  owner  of 
this  treasure,  "no  use.  If  I  could  chew 
it  up  and  get  it  down — or  two  of  it — 
that  wouldn't  slide  under  the  thing  that 
isn't  there.  Nothing  will  ever  put  me 
in  the  class  of  Professor  Browne  or 
that  preacher  on  the  car,  or  bring  the 
rest  of  me  up  to  my  clothes." 

He  rose  and  stretched. 

"Maybe,"  he  said,  addressing  a  huge 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  33 

chocolate-coloured  bust  of  an  Indian 
lady,  "  maybe  I  can  eaten  up  to  those 
fellows  some  time — but  not  here.  Noon, 
I  bet," — looking  at  his  watch, — "and 
it  is  to  eat." 

He  contemplated  the  Mantegna  baby. 

"So  long,"  he  said,  "you're  running 
things" — and  snapped  his  watch. 


n 


A  COUNTRY-HOUSE  EPISODE:   BEING  A 
GENTLEMAN 

A  GOOD-LOOKER  and  a  high 
hooker!"  This  was  the  verdict 
of  Mr.  Squem  upon  Miss  Cynthia 
Browne. 

Professor  William  Emory  Browne 
had  been  asked  down  to  the  country- 
house  of  his  widower  brother,  on  the 
ocean,  to  dine  and  stay  the  night,  and 
his  niece  had  written  him  to  bring  any 
one  he  liked. 

The  professor  had  at  once  thought 
of  Mr.  Squem,  travelling  representative 
of  the  Mercury  Rubber-Tire  Company, 
to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  services 
openhandedly  rendered  in  a  pinch — a 
35 


36  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

railway  accident.  "Just  the  way  to 
recognise  him,"  thought  the  professor, 
and  was  rather  comfortable.  Indeed, 
reflecting  upon  the  opportunity  thus 
opened  to  Mr.  Squem,  he  almost 
glowed.  Behind  was  the  feeling — a  bit 
zestful — that  in  this  way  he  would  be 
exhibiting  to  his  brother's  household  a 
unique  and  quite  amusing  person — pro- 
viding the  party  with  an  experience. 
A  singular  blend  of  motives,  which  Mr. 
Squem  could  not  possibly  have  under- 
stood. 

Professor  Browne's  brother  had 
come  into  the  world  and  lived  in  the 
world  with  just  one  object — to  make  a 
million  dollars.  This  he  had  done,  and 
there  seemed  nothing  more  to  say.  Yes, 
one  thing  more :  he  had  fathered  Cyn- 
thia, now  a  girl  of  twenty-two,  with 
the  ghost  of  a  soul-starved  mother — 
who,  in  common  with  everything  else, 
had  stood  aside  for  the  million  dollars 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  37 

—looking  out  of  her  eyes.  The  brother, 
the  brother's  daughter,  and  a  Mr.  Dud- 
ley Ledgerwood,  were  the  people  whom 
Professor  Browne  invited  Mr.  Squem 
to  the  country-house  to  meet — and  to 
amuse. 

Mr.  Squem  arrived  in  state,  bearing 
a  large  suit-case  and  a  hat-box,  the  lat- 
ter 's  maiden  appearance,  though  it  had 
been  a  treasured  possession  for  five 
years.  The  house  and  its  scale  im- 
pressed him,  and  particularly  a  foun- 
tain— copy  of  Verrocchio's  Boy  with 
the  Dolphin— well  placed  before  the 
main  entrance;  but  he  could  not  help 
feeling  a  certain  bareness,  not  to  say 
meagreness,  in  the  room  to  which  he 
was  conducted  by  the  very  correct 
maid.  True,  Tony's  Seven  Chair  Sani- 
tary Shaving  Parlor  was  not  more  im- 
maculate, and  if  he  knew  a  good  bed, 
there  it  was;  but  the  room  lacked  in 
colour-warmth, — Mr.  Squem  thought  of 


38  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

his  own  green  carpet  and  red  walls,— 
there  were  but  three  wall  pictures,  and 
they  most  unstriking,  and  the  mantel 
was  destitute  of  such  decorative  bric-a- 
brac,  picked  up  at  Atlantic  City  and 
elsewhere,  as  the  guest  loved.  Mr. 
Squem  noted  these  limitations,  then 
adjured  himself  to  "quit  knocking," 
and  proceeded  to  dress  for  dinner.  He 
was  the  only  one  who  did,  the  butler 
excepted,  the  three  other  gentlemen  be- 
ing in  light  summer  clothes. 

Miss  Cynthia  greeted  him  with  frank 
cordiality;  rarely  had  his  "pleased  to 
meet  you"  received  so  warming  a 
come-back.  She  was  a  thoroughbred— 
her  features,  her  carriage,  her  total, 
persuaded  Mr.  Squem  of  that.  Yes,  a 
thoroughbred — a  good-looker  and  a 
high-hooker!  Her  father  came  out  of 
his  million-dollar  grave  long  enough  to 
assure  the  visitor  that  he  was  welcome, 
and  then  ceased  to  exist,  and  Mr.  Dud- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  39 

ley  Ledgerwood  bowed  faintly,  looking 
over  Mr.  Squem's  head. 

This  Mr.  Ledgerwood  was  a  life- 
weary  person  of  thirty-five,  with  the 
bored  expression  of  one  permanently 
waiting  for  a  train.  He  seemed  chroni- 
cally tired,  but  not  so  tired  as  certain 
who  encountered  him.  He  had  trained 
a  really  capable  mind  upon  things 
which  he  was  certain  were  affected  by 
very  few.  He  wrote — always  from  a 
quite  Olympian  standpoint — occasional 
reviews  of  books  for  magazines  of  lim- 
ited circulation,  and  was  suspected  of 
having  dark  designs  upon  a  Book  of  his 
own.  He  was  bare  of  any  convictions, 
their  place  being  taken  by  a  passion 
for  being — different.  So  his  life  went 
in  dissatisfiedly  sniffing  things.  His 
thoughts  were  not  intentionally  other 
people's  thoughts,  or  his  ways,  where 
he  could  help  it,  their  ways.  A  mys- 


40  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

terious  providence  had  given  him  con- 
siderable money. 

The  dinner  struck  Mr.  Squem  as  an 
all-right  thing  and  function,  although 
simpler  than  at  some  hotels  he  knew, 
and  he  wondered  a  bit  that  there  was 
no  orchestra.  They  had  scarcely  fin- 
ished the  soup  before  Professor 
Browne,  thinking  it  time  for  the  enter- 
tainment to  begin,  remarked, — 

"Mr.  Squem,  though  an  active  man 
of  affairs,  is  no  stranger  to  liberal  cul- 
ture. Perhaps  he  will  tell  you  about 
his  Universal  History." 

"No  good,"  said  Mr.  Squem  with  de- 
cision, "no  good!  You  see," — he  frank- 
ly took  in  the  company, — "I  only  got 
as  far  as  the  sixth  grade — and  you 
know  you  feel  that,  when  you  begin  to 
shuck  the  day  coach  for  the  Pullman 
and  have  your  clothes  built  for  you  and 
hang  out  at  four-per  hotels.  You  sure 
do.  Something  isn't  there.  I  felt  it 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  41 

after  I  got  to  giving  sixty  straight  for 
a  sack-suit,  and  after  I  got  my  car — 
some  car,  believe  me!  Well,  I  was  tell- 
ing the  professor  here  how  maybe  I 
could  put  it  there — the  thing  that  was- 
n't— by  chewing  up  a  thirty-five  dollar 
Universal  History  I  bought — some- 
thing elegant  and  classy.  But  it  was 
no  go — no  go.  I  want  to  tell  you  I  lit 
into  that  thing  for  fair — loaded  up  on 
the  pyramids  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
and  radium  and  a  lot  of  other  things. 
But  it  didn't  put  over  what  wasn't 
there, — not  one  little  bit, — and  I  kept 
on  getting  up  against  people  who  made 
me  feel  it.  So  I  say  it  was  no  good, — 
relish  an  olive,  Miss  Browne! — I  gave 
it  to  the  Home  for  the  Friendless." 

"Lamentable!"  said  Mr.  Ledger- 
wood.  "Really " 

A  diversion  came  at  this  point,  the 
punctilious  butler  for  the  first  recorded 
time  spilling  something.  It  was  mush- 


42  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

room  sauce,  and  a  very  little  trickled 
down  the  left  and  right  arms  of  Mr. 
Sqnem  and  Mr.  Ledgerwood,  seated 
side  by  side.  The  latter  bent  upon  the 
man  a  look  which  might  have  pene- 
trated armour-plate.  He  was  extreme- 
ly irritated  and  let  it  be  seen.  Not  so 
Mr.  Squem. 

"Whoa,  George!" — he  beamed  reas- 
suringly upon  the  unhappy  butler. 
"I'm  no  Lillian  Russell.  No  milk-baths 
for  me!" 

Miss  Cynthia  instantly  covered  up. 

"So  sorry,"  she  said,  "so  very  sor- 
ry!" And  then  hurriedly:  "Oh,  I  do 
so  thank  you,  Mr.  Ledgerwood,  for  the 
picture — my  note  was  the  poorest 
thing.  Will  you  try  to  know  what  a 
satisfaction  it  is,  and  what  a  prize  to 
own  ?  I  'm  going  to  have  it  brought — my 
uncle  must  see  it.  You'll  envy  me," 
she  added  to  Professor  Browne. 

Then  there  was  borne  in,  and  placed 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  43 

for  all  to  see,  such  a  painting  as  Mr. 
Squem  had  never  in  all  his  days,  out- 
side a  junk-shop,  beheld ;  a  copy  of  the 
Becanati  Annunciation  of  Lorenzo 
Lotto;  exceedingly  old  and  dingy,  and 
with  blisters  here  and  there — a  fearful 
wreck,  in  a  woefully  tarnished  frame! 
Why  was  it  there  ? 

"Well  enough,"  said  Mr.  Ledger- 
wood  with  languor,  as  candles  were 
shifted  here  and  there  before  the  can- 
vas, ' '  and  by  way  of  being  early — fair- 
ly early.  Of  course  it's  been  ' com- 
forted' a  bit.  The  vehicle  is  reason- 
ably clear,  with  something  of  the  orig- 
inal's subtle  qualities  of  tint."  (He 
had  cribbed  this  phrasing  from  Mr. 
Berenson.)  "The  lights  and  shadows, 
too,  are  treated  with — ah,  genuine  sci- 
ence, as  there.  Does  the  cat  here  at  all 
suggest  the  lion  of  the  Hamburg  St. 
Jerome,  Professor  Browne!" 

Professor     Browne     was — as     Mr. 


44  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

Ledgerwood  devoutly  hoped  would  be 
the  case — unable  to  say,  and  further 
conversation  permitted  a  display  of  im- 
pressive connoisseurship — worth  giv- 
ing a  picture  for  any  day.  At  length 
the  professor  turned  to  the  silent  and 
still  astonished  Mr.  Squem. 

"What  do  you  think  of  the  picture?" 
he  asked.  "How  does  it  appeal  to 
you?" 

What  Mr.  Squem  really  thought,  and 
what  he  had  for  some  moments  been 
affirming  to  himself,  was  that  the  whole 
thing  was  enough  to  make  a  man  swal- 
low his  tonsils.  What  he  said,  survey- 
ing the  cat  affrighted  at  the  angel, 
was, — 

"Some  scared  pussy!" 

A  silence  followed,  which  at  length 
pricked  him  to  a  sense  of  his  guest's 
duty.  "Just  been  out  to  Denver,"  he 
said,  "over  the  Q.  First  time  in  years. 
It's  a  spry  burg,  and  no  shrinking  vio- 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  45 

let,  either.  Something  happened  to  me 
there  once." 

"Tell  us  about  it,"  urged  Professor 
Browne  with  ringmaster's  readiness. 

"Well,  you  see  it  was  this  way — no 
spinach  for  me,  thanks.  I  was  on  my 
first  long  trip.  Hadn't  been  west  of 
Pittsburg  before,  and  I  never  hope  for 
a  ride  like  that  again.  Gee!  those 
brush-balls  rolling  over  the  prairie — 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  'em  rolling 
and  rolling !  Spookish  things.  And  the 
wooden-toothpick  fence-posts — m  i  1  e  s 
and  miles  of  them.  Then  old  Pike's 
looming  'up,  not  twenty  minutes  off, 
you'd  bet;  near  enough  to  spit  on, 
you'd  say,  but  staying  there,  just  stay- 
ing there,  for  hours !  A  Denver  man  in 
the  seat  ahead  says,  'I  thought  it  would 
make  your  jaw  drop  on  your  wish-bone' 
— and  he  was  right.  It  was  great ! ' ' 

"Hc£c  olim,"  volunteered  Mr.  Led- 
gerwood,  with  a  touch  of  ohill. 


46  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

"We  didn't  stop  at  that  place,"  said 
Mr.  Squem.  "It  was  an  express.  Well, 
I  went  into  the  diner  an  hour  this  side 
of  Denver — anything  I  can  reach  you, 
Mr.  Browne? — and  when  I'd  squared 
for  my  meal,  do  you  know,  I  had  just 
sixty-seven  cents  left  I  Sixty-seven 
cents, — and  I  didn't  know  a  soul  in  Col- 
orado,— not  a  soul!  Figured  I'd  be 
about  three  days  too  soon  to  find  a 
draft  from  the  house,  and  my  only  bag- 
gage was  one  of  these  bird-size  grips. 
Well,  I  took  a  hack  at  the  station  for 
White's  Palace  Hotel, — it  hurt  me  fifty 
cents, — and  I  stood  up  at  the  green- 
marble  counter  and  hancocked  the  reg- 
ister and  asked  for  my  mail.  Nothing 
doing,  as  I  supposed.  No  mail.  So 
there  I  was,  a  right  smart  from  home, 
as  they  say  in  Baltimore,  with  nothing 
I  could  put  up  for  my  board  and  no- 
body in  the  state  I  could  strike  for  a 
dollar.  They'd  had  an  awful  pest  of 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  47 

hotel-beats,  too,  with  smooth  stories, 
just  before — and  me  there,  with  seven- 
teen cents!" 

"What  a  situation!"  said  Miss 
Browne.  "But  surely  there  was  the 
telegraph." 

"Nobody  was  taking  any  chances  on 
collect-wires  East,"  said  Mr.  Squem. 
"They'd  as  soon  set  up  mileage  to  Chi- 
cago. That  would  have  meant  a  swift 
kick.  As  I  said,  others  had  been  there 
before  me,  and  some  of  them  were  do- 
ing time  right  then." 

"What  did  you  do!"  Miss  Cynthia 
was  keen  with  the  question. 

"I  went  and  bought  a  shave,"  said 
Mr.  Squem.  "I  needed  it.  While  the 
mahogany  brother  was  mowing  me, — 
it  was  a  tonsorial  parlour  I  was  in,  not 
a  shop, — he  says,  'You  need  a  hair- 
cut,' and  I  says,  'I  need  the  price' — 
and  told  him  all  about  it.  'Why,'  he 
says,  'you  look  good  to  me.  Have  the 


48  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

hair-cut,  and  this  shave,  too,  on  the 
place,  till  you  get  your  letter.  Sure, 
that  'sail  right. '" 

Mr.  Squem  fingered  his  demi-tasse  a 
moment,  then  said  slowly — 

"That  coon  was  sure  an  answer  to 
prayer;  I  was  up  against  it.  He'll  nev- 
er know  what  he  did  for  me,  but  I've 
never  forgot  him.  I've  been  giving 
twenty-five  a  year  to  Shiloh  Baptist 
Church  ever  since.  Well,  I  had  the 
hair-cut,  and  a  sea-foam,  too,  and  got 
out  of  the  chair  and  let  him  chalk  it 
up.  I  wanted  to  celebrate  some  way, 
for  my  nerve  was  back,  so  I  went  to 
the  bar  and  got  a  grown  person's  drink. 
It  was  fifteen  cents,  and  I  had  two  cents 
left.  Then  I  leaned  down  by  the  bar 
and  dropped  the  two  cents  in  a  spittoon 
and  went  broke." 

Miss  Cynthia's  eyes  snapped. 

"Then,"  continued  Mr.  Squem,  "I 
walked  straight  up  to  the  hotel  desk, 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  49 

as  independent  as  a  hog  on  ice, — excuse 
me,  Miss  Browne, — and  says  to  the 
lady-cashier,  'Ten  dollars,  please,  and 
charge  to  Room  17.'  " 

''Aplomb!"  interjected  Mr.  Ledger- 
wood. 

"No,  not  a  plum,"  said  Mr.  Squem, 
"a  peach.  She  was  a  peach.  She 
pushed  the  ten  right  across.  Seemed 
kind  of  sorry  I  hadn't  made  it  ten 
more.  I  did,  two  days  later,  and  it 
came  just  as  easy.  She  sensed  the  con- 
fidence in  me,  see — the  ginger  that  bar- 
ber put  there.  I  never  could  have  done 
it  without  him.  On  the  fourth  day  my 
draft  came  and  I  was  on  Easy  Street." 

Mr.  Ledgerwood  had  not  enjoyed 
this  narrative  in  the  least,  and  the  less 
because  Miss  Cynthia  evidently  had. 
She  was  not  merely  amused:  she  was 
positively — it  seemed  to  him  almost  ad- 
miringly— interested.  Said  he,  with  an 
access  of  sourness, — 


50  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

"Chacun  a  son  gout.  Travelling 
about  in  that  happy-go-lucky  way — 
with  insufficient  funds — smells  of  the 
canaille.  It  has  a  suggestion  of  va- 
grancy." 

"You  mean  I  was  going  too  short!" 
inquired  Mr.  Squem  innocently.  "Well, 
just  that  morning  I'd  had  a  twenty- 
dollar  yellow-back  pinned  to  my  under- 
shirt,— excuse  me,  Miss  Browne, — but 
I  met  a  man  on  the  train, — selling  on 
commission  he  was,  and  business  had 
been  bum, — who'd  been  wired  to  come 
home  to  a  mighty  sick  kid,  and  he  had- 
n't the  money  to  get  there.  His  mile- 
age was  out  and  he  was  going  to  be  put 
off.  So  I  had  to  unpin  the  twenty." 

Miss  Cynthia  leaned  forward.  ' '  That 
was  dear  of  you!"  she  said  impulsive- 

ly. 

Mr.  Squem  looked  puzzled.  "Had  to 
do  it,  of  course,"  he  said.  "Anybody 
would." 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  51 

As  the  party  rose  from  the  table,  he 
left  a  silver  dollar  at  his  place.  He 
thought  it  might  be  helpful  to  the  other 
man  in  evening  clothes. 

There  were  two  hours  on  the  porch 
in  the  summer-night  quiet,  to  the  ac- 
companiment of  some  excellent  cigars 
of  Mr.  Squem's  providing.  He  had 
brought  them  along  and  insisted  that 
they  be  tried.  "Yours  are  no  good," 
he  jocularly  informed  the  host.  Pro- 
fessor Browne  made  some  further  ef- 
fort to  display  his  protege,  but  Mr. 
Squem  had  noticed  that  the  master  of 
the  house  was  treated  as  a  sort  of  nec- 
essary furniture,  and  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  other  two  men  actually  suc- 
ceeded in  thawing  him  out  and  get- 
ting him  alive.  It  was  a  great  surprise, 
and  infinitely  warming  to  Professor 
Browne 's  brother ;  and  to  Miss  Cynthia 
it  seemed  a  kind  of  beautiful  miracle. 


52  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

She  could  not  remember  when  she  had 
seen  her  father's  eyes  light  up  or  heard 
him  laugh,  and  it  made  a  catch  in  her 
throat. 

As  the  evening  wore  on,  she  sat  down 
at  the  piano  in  the  open-doored  room 
and  began  to  play.  Mr.  Ledgerwood 
and  Professor  Browne  continued  an 
earnest  discussion  of  some  problem 
connected  with  Renaissance  Art,  but 
Mr.  Squem  fell  silent  before  the  music 
stealing  to  the  porch  from  within.  It 
was  of  a  type  unfamiliar  to  him,  and  he 
was  sure  it  would  not  whistle.  Under 
other  conditions,  it  is  doubtful  if  he 
could  have  held  it  music  at  all;  but 
there  was  something  in  it,  as  things 
were,  which  strangely  moved  him,  and 
there  was  an  effect  and  a  concord  with- 
in, which,  as  it  was  not  maimed  by  any 
attempted  expression,  made  the  spin- 
dling spiritual  experience  of  Dudley 
Ledgerwood  show  as  mockery  indeed. 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES 


Mr.  Squem  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  bed 
in  the  twelve-dollar  silk  pajamas  which 
he  had  bought  expressly  for  this  occa- 
sion, and,  as  he  preluded  sleep  with  a 
cigarette,  thought  about  the  stage  of 
the  evening  and  the  persons  of  the 
play. 

''Some  swell  shack,"  he  soliloquised. 
"That  big  hall,— and  the  kid  in  the 
front  yard  squeezing  the  mackerel, — 
such  things  cost  real  money.  But  then, 
no  dress-suits;  and  that  ratty  old  pic- 
ture— of  all  the  cold  gravy ! — That  man 
with  the  cocoanut  whiskers," — thus  he 
recalled  Mr.  Ledgerwood, — "he's  some 
sour  brother,  but  then  he's  sick.  That's 
easy;  he's  a  sick  man.  Professor 
Browne  is  the  best  ever.  Let  me  do  all 
the  talking  and  hugged  the  wall;  took 
a  back-seat  himself.  George,  /  got  to 
do  more  of  that !  That  brother  of  his, 
poor  duffer !  All  he  needs  is  somebody 
to  fuss  over  him  and  wake  him  up.  Miss 


54  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

Cynthia!" — he  hesitated,  unwilling 
now  to  apply  the  complimentary  phrase 
of  some  hours  before.  "All  to  the 
good,"  he  sighed,  and  the  music  that 
wouldn't  whistle  was  back  with  him. 
He  surveyed  himself  at  full  length  in 
a  mirror  door.  "It  isn't  there,"  he 
said,  "not  there!"  And  then  again, 
"All  to  the  good!" 

In  another  part  of  the  house  the  but- 
ler showed  a  maid  the  silver  dollar, 
which  some  way  seemed  to  him  more 
than  money — seemed  to  have  proper- 
ties lacking  in  money. 

"He  isn't  a  gentleman,"  he  said; 
' '  of  course,  not  at  all  a  gentleman.  But 
he's  all  right— all  right!" 

In  the  drawing-room  Miss  Cynthia 
addressed  Mr.  Ledgerwood.  "Oh,  I 
know,"  she  said,  "any  one  would  say  I 
was  impossible  if  I  were  put  in  a  story 


&OME   MALE  TRIANGLES  55 

— or  else  that  I'm  one  of  the  kind  who 
run  away  with  the  chauffeur.  But  I've 
met  a  gentleman  at  last, — I  don't  care 
what  you  say, — a  gentleman  at  last. 
You  remember  in  The  Flight  of  the 
Duchess — 

So  all  that  the  old  Dukes  had  been  without 

knowing  it, 
This  Duke  would  fain  know  that  he  was, 

without  being  it. 

I've  been  thinking  of  that  all  the  even- 
ing. Don't  you  see, — can't  you  see, 
Mr.  Ledgerwood, — that  we've  had 
something  real  here  to-night — that  one 
of  the  old  Dukes  has  been  here?" 

And  then — 

* '  No  one  can  be  a  gentleman  and  feel 
being  so.  I've  known  the  kind  who 
feel  being  so.  Mr.  Squem  doesn't — 
and  he's  a  gentleman!" 


rn 

A  PLAYHOUSE  EPISODE :  THE  BEX  INSTINCT 

ME.  PETER  SQUEM  had  been 
thoroughly  barbered — shaved, 
massaged,  shampooed  and  anointed 
with  '  *  Roses  of  Avalon. ' '  Also  he  had 
had  "tonic."  Then  he  had  donned  his 
evening  clothes — correct  in  every  de- 
tail, according  to  the  House  of  Fashion 
stylebook — and  in  a  state  of  extreme 
fragrance  had  made  his  way  to  a  par- 
quet chair  costing  three  dollars  at  the 
Lyric  Theatre.  Wagner  opera  it  was 
to  be.  Mr.  Squem  knew  little  of  this, 
but  he  understood  it  was  "classy,"  and 
he  knew  that  three  dollars  meant  that 
one  must  "come  along  with  the 
clothes. ' ' 

57 


58  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

He  did  not  achieve  rapport  with  the 
music,  and  was  unable  to  differentiate 
much  of  it  from  the  preliminary  tun- 
ing of  the  instruments.  During  one  of 
the  most  impressive  numbers,  his 
thoughts  were  upon  the  liquid  secre- 
tions and  frequent  emptyings  of  a  large 
horn.  "  Regular  old  geyser,"  he 
thought.  When  the  first  part  ended — it 
seemed  quite  long — he  turned  to  a  gen- 
tleman in  the  chair  next  his  and  re- 
marked : 

"I  guess  you  have  to  learn  how  in 
this  kind  of  business,  the  same  as  you 
do  with  caviare." 

' '  Well,  yes, ' '  was  the  answer,  ' '  learn 
or  pretend  you  have.  It  doesn  't  appeal 
to  you?" 

"It  hasn't  got  my  post-office  address 
yet,"  said  Mr.  Squem.  " Think  a  cor- 
respondence-school would  help!" 

"Doubtful,"  replied  the  other, 
* '  though  some  one  was  talking  the  oth- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  59 

er  day  about  lion-taming  by  corre- 
spondence. It's  'the  music  of  the  fu- 
ture,' you  see — that's  what  they  call  it 
— that  you  are  hearing  to-night,  and 
that's  what  has  brought  seventy  per 
cent  of  these  people  here.  They  don't 
really  hear  any  more  music  than  you 
do,  and  it  almost  bores  them  to  death — 
there's  considerable  suffering  around 
us ;  but  to  be  among  the  early  arrivals 
in  the  future,  you  know — something  a 
little  more  than  up  to  date" 

"You  mean  they  don't  come  for  the 
show,"  interrupted  Mr.  Squem,  "but 
only  to  get  in  front!" 

"Your  phrase,"  said  the  gentleman, 
"explains  their  suffering  and  immola- 
tion. They  want  exactly  that — to  get 
in  front,  or  keep  close  to  people  they 
think  in  front,  and  they'll  endure  a  lot 
for  that.  Your  feeling  about  Wagner 
reminds  me  of  a  very  old  story.  They 
say  a  Chicago  pork  millionaire  once 


60  MR.    SQTJEM    AND 

went  to  Baireuth  and  there  heard  a 
Wagner  opera — of  course  the  thing  to 
do.  When  they  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  it,  he  said:  'It  just  proves 
what  I've  always  said — that  a  man 
ought  to  stick  to  his  job.  As  long  as 
this  man  Wagner  stuck  to  making 
sleeping-cars,  he  was  all  right.'  " 

"Off,  wasn't  he?"  said  Mr.  Squem 
quite  seriously.  "It  wasn't  the  same 
Wagner  at  all!  You  can  understand 
it,  though.  Do  you  care  for  him!" 

The  other  smiled.  "I  am  interested 
in  people,"  he  said.  "I  try  to  write 
books  about  people,  and  so  I  have  to 
study  them.  I  find  Wagner  opera  a 
particularly  good  place  to  do  that — an 
excellent  place  to  study  a  very  funny 
breed." 

"Excuse  me,"  said  Mr.  Squem. 
"The  price  is  too  high  for  the  come- 
back. Three  plunks  to  see  a  lot  of 
pikers — and  sit  in  a  planing-mill  to  do 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  61 

it!  I've  had  my  dose,  and  this  is  an 
overhead  charge  for  the  Mercury  Tire 
Company.  I'm  going  in  next  door  to 
see  Charlie  Chaplin." 

Mr.  Henry  Barton  Greene,  without 
explaining  that  Mr.  Squem  himself  was 
the  real  magnet,  asked  if  he  might  go. 
"I've  swung  my  butter-fly  net  enough 
here  to-night,"  he  said,  "and  I'd  really 
like  to  see  some  motion-pictures.  So  if 
you'll  permit  me — 

"Sure!  Come  along,"  said  Mr. 
Squem.  "It'll  make  you  forget  this 
gold-brick.  You'll  see  some  folks,  too 
— live  ones." 

It  was  drizzling  as  they  left  the  the- 
atre, and  Mr.  Squem  elevated  an  um- 
brella to  which  he  drew  his  companion's 
attention.  "Imported,"  he  said,  "and 
weighs  exactly  seventeen  ounces."  He 
fondled  the  ivory  handle,  carved  after 
the  similitude  of  a  female's  nether  limb. 
"The  firm's  Christmas  to  me,"  he 


62  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

added,  "and  set  'em  back  twenty-two 
fifty." 

Mr.  Chaplin  was  super-active  and  in- 
conceivably contortionate.  He  pushed 
hand-carts  into  man-holes  and  fell  in 
after  them.  He  tripped  up  policemen 
and  buried  them  under  park  benches. 
He  made  prodigal  use  of  paste,  which 
he  impartially  applied  to  walls  and  pic- 
tures and  the  features  of  bystanders. 
For  all  of  which  he  had  his  reward  in 
deafening  shouts  of  merriment  and  up- 
roarious applause.  It  was  a  ravished 
audience. 

"Comic!"  gasped  Mr.  Squem,  wiping 
his  streaming  eyes  with  an  immense 
silk  handkerchief  of  startling  pattern, 
"Sure  comic!  Woof!  These  people 
come  for  the  show,  and  they're  getting 
it — getting  it  now ;  no  *  future '  monkey- 
business;  see?  They  ain't  worried 
about  getting  in  front,  either — they're 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  63 

seeing  what's  in  front.  Some  Stuff! 
And  all  for  ten  cents !  Those  poor  dubs 
up  there  at  the  funeral — and  at  three 
dollars  per!" 

Mr.  Chaplin's  part  of  the  entertain- 
ment drew  toward  its  close,  and  as  he 
volleyed  a  large  mass  of  dough  into  the 
face  of  an  elderly  lady  on  crutches,  Mr. 
Squem  punctuated  the  crowd's  de- 
lighted screeches: 

"You  get  the  plot,  don't  you  see? 
That's  what — the  plot.  There  wasn't  a 
smell  of  one  in  the  Wagner  business, 
— not  a  snuff.  Honest,  it  was  just  bug- 
house. Here's  another  film — not  comic, 
but  I  bet  it's  good — 'The  Crucifixion 
of  Imogene.'  I  guess  we'd  better 
stay." 

The  production  was  a  specially  ob- 
vious form  of  the  triangle.  It  began  in 
California,  amid  scenery  which  im- 
pressed the  exacting  Mr.  Greene  as 
marvellous,  then  moved  to  an  appal- 


64  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

lingly  elaborate  hotel — one  of  the  sort 
described  as  existing  to  provide  exclu- 
siveness  for  the  masses — in  New  York, 
and  ended  in  Switzerland.  The  hus- 
band, a  gentleman  of  cold  and  haughty 
bearing  and  brittle  morals,  appeared  in 
five  carefully  cut  suits  of  clothing  in 
as  many  scenes,  waved  servants  about 
with  imperial  gestures  and  used  a  desk 
telephone  three  time^.  The  wife 
achieved  her  whole  duty  by  being  sac- 
charinely  sweet  and  by  incessantly 
weeping — curiously  without  the  least 
disarray  of  her  features.  The  snaky 
villainess — there  was  nothing  else  to 
do  after  the  husband 's  swift  and  rather 
puzzling  reclaim  to  glaring  impeccabil- 
ity— obligingly  fell  down  the  Matter- 
horn  by  dummy-proxy  at  the  end.  Mr. 
Greene  felt  that  there  was  nothing  to 
say,  and  Mr.  Squem  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  say  enough. 

' '  Gee ! "  he  ejaculated,  as  the  pseudo- 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  65 

body  of  the  temptress,  lying  under  low 
light  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  faded 
into  the  vision  of  husband  and  wife  in 
uncomfortably  close  embrace,  and  the 
crashed-out  Mendelssohn's  wedding 
march — "Gee!" 

He  relieved  his  surcharged  soul. 

"What  do  you  say  to  hot  dogs  and 
suds  over  at  Snotty's?"  he  asked. 

At  Spotty 's  he  was  able  to  talk  about 
it.  "Some  great  piece,"  he  said.  "I 
bet  even  the  ticket-man  bawled.  It's 
got  all  the  preachers  scorched  for  fair, 
and  it's  just  like  it  said  on  the  curtain, 
'A  Lesson  for  Every  Home.'  " 

He  addressed  himself  to  his  mug,  and 
went  on. 

"There's  only  one  thing  I'd  have 
changed — or  put  in.  It  ended  right,  all 
right;  but  that  guy— some  snappy 
dresser,  wasn't  he? — ought  to  have  got 
more  jolts.  I  liked  his  wife's  forgiving 
him,  and,  Great  Scott,  I'd  have  him  get 


66  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

back — you've  just  got  to  have  that,  or 
we'd  all  better  croak — but  he  ought  to 
had  more  jolts.  A  whipping-post 
would  have  been  a  good  stunt — and  it 
would  have  added  to  the  interest,  too 
— and  him  tied  up  by  the  thumbs,  and 
paying  up  with  about  twenty-five  lashes 
on  his  bare  back.  He  really  needed 
'em  to  make  good." 

* '  That  would  have  been  pretty  stren- 
uous," said  Mr.  Greene.  "You  see 
nothing  pathological  in  the  gentleman 's 
lapse!" 

"I  only  got  as  far  as  the  sixth 
grade,"  said  Mr.  Squem  humbly. 

"I  mean,  you  don't  see  anything  like 
— well,  what  people  call  disease,  in  his 
forgetting  his  wife ! ' ' 

"If  it  was  that,"  replied  Mr.  Squem, 
"the  twenty-five  lashes  would  have 
been  dandy  medicine.  Call  it  what  you 
like,  as  long  as  he  got  *em," 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  67 

* '  You  are  probably  not  familiar  with 
Sigmund  Freud  V9 

"Freud,  Freud, "  ruminated  Mr. 
Squem,  "I  did  know  a  Dutchman 
named  that — foreman  in  a  brewery 
over  in  Cincinnati — but  he  was  Johann. 
Maybe  a  brother  or  something.  Does 
this  one  have  buck  teeth?" 

Mr.  Greene  confessed  ignorance  and 
continued : 

"You  know  there  are  people  nowa- 
days who  would  regard  you  as  a  pur- 
ist." 

"They'd  have  another  guess;  I  sell 
tires." 

"These  people  would  say  that  you 
have  —  well  —  rather  childish  ideas 
about  the  relations  of  men  and  women 
— about  sex.  They  would  say  that  to 
fuss  over  it  as  'holy'  is  all  a  silly  and 
childish  and  frightfully  back-number 
business.  They  think  that  while,  for 
general  convenience,  husbands  and 


68  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

wives  had  best — well — stick  to  each 
other,  not  too  much  is  to  be  made  of 
it  when  they  don't." 

Mr.  Squem  looked  at  Mr.  Greene 
very  hard. 

"Do  you  mean,"  he  asked,  "that  any 
man  who  isn't  a  skunk  says  a  thing 
like  that?" 

"The  word  is  harsh,"  replied  Mr. 
Greene.  "These  people  think  they  see 
beyond  our  present  small  normal  ar- 
rangements— see  into  structure,  you 
know.  They  think  we  must  rise  above 
certain  popular  notions  of  ours — really 
superstitions — in  this  matter  of  sex; 
get  over  the  idea  that  it  is  'holy,'  or 
anything  like  that,  you  know,  and — 
well — grant  considerable  leeway  to  and 
make  considerable  allowance  for  the 
sex-instinct." 

"Oh,  Lulu!"  said  Mr.  Squem.  "Do 
they  say  that  about  the  swipe-instinct 
— hogging  things,  you  know?  Do  they 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  69 

say  that  about  the  gun-instinct — shoot- 
ing guys  in  the  back,  like  those  Indians 
in  New  York?  Allowance — Rats!  Men 
I  know — men  who  would  spoil  the  air 
of  a  stable — know  that  that's  mush!" 

He  rose  from  his  chair  and  straight- 
ened. "You  know  what  I  think?"  he 
asked.  "I  think  people  who  say  that — 
well,  the  best  you  can  say  of  'em  is 
that  they're  smart  Alecks,  and  smart 
Alecks  make  you  sick.  If  they're  not 
that,  then  they're  just  a  bunch  of 
snakes." 

"I  am  a  man,"  he  went  on,  in  a  voice 
somewhat  changing,  "and  some  spot- 
ted; and  I'm  looking  for  a  whipping- 
post for  some  things  in  my  life — look- 
ing for  it,  and  by  God  I'm  going  to 
have  it!  It's  coming  to  me  and  it's 
mine.  I'm  getting  some  of  it  right 
along,  too — every  day — for  something 
I  done  fifteen  years  ago.  And  it  wasn  't 


70  MR.    SQUEM 


the  sex-instinct  that  done  it.  It  was 
me!" 

"I  am  a  man,"  he  repeated,  "and  a 
man  who  knows  mighty  little  except 
rubber,  Almighty  God  knows!  But  I 
know  better  than  that  thing  you  said, 
and — I  am  a  man  and  not  a  hound!" 

And  then  he  added,  very  solemnly, 
a  word  which,  someway  seeming  at 
once  an  anathema  and  a  prayer,  testi- 
fied the  massive  decency  at  the  heart 
of  the  common  man: 

"To  hell  with  your  sex-instinct!" 


IV 

AN  AUTOMOBILE  EPISODE:  "UP  TO  THE 
GOOD  MAN" 

PETER  B.  SQUEM,  representative 
of  Mercury  Tires,  was  on  a  trip 
with  his  car — an  Ariel  roadster,  blind- 
ingly  yellow  save  for  the  broad  pur- 
ple streak  about  its  body  and  with  red- 
rimmed  wheels.  He  enjoyed  using  this 
vehicle  which  the  Ariel  people  adver- 
tised as  "the  uttermost  expression  of 
modernity,"  and  whose  colouring  was 
Mr.  Squem's  own  idea.  "I  guess  it 
will  make  the  yaps  sit  up,"  the  sales 
agent  had  remarked  on  delivering  the 
car,  and  he  was  right.  It  made  every- 
body sit  up  .and  the  more  after  the  pur- 
chaser had  added  a  pink  top,  with  the 

71 


72  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

final  happy  touch  of  a  portrait  of  him- 
self looking  out  of  the  oval  window 
at  the  back.  "They  get  me  coming 
and  going,  you  see,"  said  Mr.  Squem. 
Below  the  portrait  was  a  line  or  two 
apropos  the  merits  of  Mercury  tires. 

At  the  hotel  he  had  persuaded  a 
breakfast-table  acquaintance  to  ride 
with  him  to  a  town  some  twenty  miles 
distant,  instead  of  waiting  an  hour  for 
a  train;  and  the  gentleman,  after  a 
startled  look  at  the  car — it  occurred  to 
him  that  a  camel  would  be  consider- 
ably less  conspicuous — had  tucked  him- 
self in  and  the  two  had  got  underway. 
The  host  had  an  agreeable  sense  of 
rhyming  with  his  car.  A  Sunday  paper 
had  shown  him  illustrations  of  the  very 
latest  in  automobile  togs,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence his  coat,  goggles  and  cap 
were  all  strictly  contemporaneous — if 
not,  indeed,  a  little  more. 

He  had  a  good  deal  of  pleasure  in 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  73 

"letting  her  out."  It  was  not  enough 
that  the  car  should  be  a  thing  of  unique 
— of  almost  piercing — beauty.  It  must 
be  there  with  the  goods.  Mr.  Squem 
had  received  from  a  "lady  friend,"  at 
Christmas,  a  gift  of  cigars — cigars  in- 
dividually wrapped  in  silver  paper  and 
reposing  in  a  mistletoe-emblemmed 
box,  with  "The  Season's  Greetings" 
in  gold  tracery  on  top.  A  dainty  thing, 
yet  those  cigars  when  lighted — so  Mr. 
Squem  imparted  to  a  friend — tasted 
like  something  long  dead.  He  was  glad 
now,  as  always,  to  demonstrate  the 
Ariel  no  such  proposition.  So  he  "let 
her  rip"  and  they  came,  a  yellow  flash, 
doing  a  full  mile  a  minute  over  the  pike 
and  with  the  culverts  through  which 
they  passed  clashing  like  cymbals  in 
their  ears.  And  then ! — A  sudden  cave 
in  a  summer-road  down  at  the  side,  a 
swift  whirl  of  the  wheel,  and  the  car 
desperately  ploughing  at  right  angles 


74  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

off  into  a  field,  shaking  like  a  Newfound- 
land, rearing  like  a  broncho,  heavily 
smashing  at  last  into  a  stump. 

The  two  sat  motionless  for  five  sec- 
onds after  the  jar.  Then  Mr.  Squem 
said  with  feeling: 

"You  want  to  hump  yourself  and 
be  damn  sure  to  thank  the  Lord  for 
this — same  as  you  rap  on  wood.  I 
always  do." 

To  which  curious  bidding  to  prayer 
his  companion,  after  a  moment's  pause, 
unsteadily  rejoined: 

"A  close — close — call.  It  might  have 
been  death. " 

"Sure,  just  what  I  meant,"  said  Mr. 
Squem,  "Thank  the  Lord  and  get  it 
over.  Some  crimp  in  the  car,  all  right. 
Look  at  that  radiator.  We'll  have  to 
hoof  it  for  help." 

There  were  two  miles  of  the  hoofing. 
"I've  got  a  hunch,"  said  Mr.  Squem, 
as  they  began  to  step  off,  "that  I  don't 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  75 

sell  tires  to-day.  This  siding  we're 
coming  to,  well,  they'll  flag  something 
they  call  a  train  at  about  eleven  and 
you  can  get  out;  but  it's  on  the  cards 
for  me  to  telephone  the  Dutch  town 
for  some  kind  of  a  car-tink  and  then 
roost  here  till  he  comes.  Some  pic-nic ! 
You  know  those  community  mausole- 
ums? They  got  the  idea  for  'em  from 
this  burg  I'm  going  to  be  hung  up  in." 

He  paused  to  light  a  stogie  and  then 
added: 

"  Thank  Pratt,  I  can  do  something 
besides  fight  flies." 

Then,  rummaging  in  the  pockets  of 
his  billowing  automobile  coat,  he  pro- 
duced, to  the  considerable  surprise  of 
his  companion,  a  copy  of  The  Contem- 
porary Review.  "  A  fellow  was  telling 
me  in  Poughkeepsie  last  week,"  he 
said,  "that  this  has  some  class.  It 
sure  ought  to  have.  They  want  four 
bones  a  year  for  it  and  it  hasn't  got 


76  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

a  smell  of  a  picture  in  it — not  a  smell. ' ' 

"I  want  to  take  off  my  hat,"  said 
the  other,  "to  your  nerve,  your  won- 
derful spring  back  from  the  shock 
we've  just  had.  You  know  I'm  all 
shaken  up.  It's  going  to  last  a  long 
while  with  me — that  awful  pitching 
down  the  field  and  the  car  on  the  edge 
of  going  over.  And  then  that  gully 
— did  you  see  it! — showing  just  be- 
yond that  stump  that  saved  us.  We 
were  mighty  close  to  eternity.  We 
were  within  an  ace  of  death." 

"It  was  up  to  the  Good  Man,"  said 
Mr.  Squem  with  an  air  of  dismissal, 
"and  we're  here." 

"But  it  was  death,  you  know,"  per- 
sisted the  other,  "death  just  as  close 
as  death  comes  to  the  trenches.  That 
was  what  we  were  against.  How  can 
you  pass  it  off  as  you  dot" 

"Same  as  I  passed  off  the  small- 
pox I  skipped  last  year,"  answered 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  77 

Mr.  Squem,  "The  time  I  got  into  the 
pest-house  at  Keokuk  "by  mistake. 
What's  the  good  of  going  around  and 
thinking  about  it?  What  I'm  thinking 
about  is  how  to  get  out  of  this  mess. — 
That's  the  job,  not  thinking  about 
death." 

"But  heavens,  man,  we've  had  some- 
thing to  make  us  think  about  it.  Just 
make  us  think  about  it.  Lots  of  peo- 
ple think  about  it  without  anything  at 
all  to  make  them  and  here  you  are 
with  your  nerves  as  steady  as  a  clock." 

"Nothing  doing,"  interrupted  Mr. 
Squem. 

"Well,  lots  do,"  said  the  other,  ap- 
parently glad  to  talk.  "Anyway,  don't 
you  have  to  sometimes,  if  you  think  at 
all?  It's  only  thin,  surface  living  that 
doesn't  sometimes.  I  remember  a 
poem,  whose  writer,  full  of  thoughts  of 
his  own  death,  ends  two  of  the  verses : 


78  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

"  'I  wonder  what  day  of  the  month, 
I  wonder  what  month  of  the  year! '  n 

Mr.  Squem's  reception  of  this  was 
laconic.  "Some  nut,"  he  said.  Then, 
emitting  a  yell,  he  caught  the  other  by 
the  collar  and  violently  dragged  him  to 
the  middle  of  the  road,  pointing  in  ex- 
planation, a  second  later,  to  a  rattle- 
snake, in  coil  and  ready  to  strike,  per- 
ilously close  to  the  path. 

"Good  God!"  exclaimed  the  guest. 
"Can  anything  more  happen  to-day?" 

Mr.  Squem  volunteered  no  opinion 
on  this  head,  but  with  deliberation  and 
coolness  proceeded  to  despatch  the 
ugly  reptile  with  stones,  after  which 
he  evidently  considered  the  incident 
entirely  closed,  and  remarked: 

"I  don't  know  if  you're  a  preach- 
er  ." 

"Lawyer,"  said  the  other,  his  voice 
shaking. 

"I  wasn't  going  to  say  anything  if 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  79 

you  was  a  preacher — people  don't.  We 
got  to  have  men  around  to  believe 
things  the  rest  of  us  can't,  and  then 
bat  'em  out  to  us,  overdose  us — see? 
— with  things  we  ought  to  believe 
some.  Yes,  we  just  call  them  'Rev- 
erend' and  let  them  talk — it's  all  tom- 
my rot,  thinking  about  death,  and  it's 
the  best  horse-sense  not  to  ever  think 
about  it,  at  least  until  it  gets  here — 
and  then  a  quick  deal.  I  was  to  see 
Mach  Leondard  before  he  died  last 
week — it  was  cancer — and  he  says  to 
me:  'I've  just  shook  hands  with  God, 
and  I'm  ready  when  he  is.'  That's  all 
right — just  business,  you  understand. 
But  until  the  time  sure  comes,  I  figure 
the  job  is  my  business,  and  nothing 
else — and  the  rest  is  up  to  the  Good 
Man." 

"A  new  Euthanasia,"  said  the  law- 
yer. 

"What's  the  name  of  a  sleeping  car 


80  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

got  to  do  with  it ! ' '  queried  Mr.  Squem. 
The  guest,  whose  name  was  Robin- 
son, very  decently  insisted  upon  wait- 
ing for  Mr.  Squem,  so  they  did  not  flag 
the  train.  The  two  put  in  the  morning 
smoking  and  playing  cards  in  the  office 
of  the  New  Aldine  Hotel — the  most 
out-at-elbows  of  all  the  dingy  build- 
ings of  the  settlement.  During  the 
forenoon  the  entire  population,  save 
one  sorely  disappointed  bed-ridden 
man,  filtered  in  to  see  the  visitors  and 
speculate  as  to  why  in  the  world  they 
were  there,  one  native  conjecturing  to 
another  that  Mr.  Squem  might  per- 
haps be  Mr.  Schwab,  minded  to  buy 
the  town.  The  dinner,  when  it  came, 
was  not  exactly  an  orgy,  the  ham  be- 
ing quite  salt,  the  potatoes  quite  hard, 
the  coffee  quite  indefinite  in  flavour 
and  the  pie  quite  popular  with  numer- 
ous energetic  flies.  This  last  circum- 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  81 

stance  woke  an  old  memory  in  Mr. 
Squem. 

"Makes  you  think, "  lie  said,  "of 
that  guy  at  the  railroad  eating- joint. 
*  What  kind  of  pie  ? '  they  says ;  and  he 
says,  *  Blackberry. '  'Oh,'  they  says, 
'that  ain't  blackberry,'  and  blew  on  it. 
And,  believe  me,  it  wasn't.  It  was  cus- 
tard!" 

With  such  table  talk  and  with  pleas- 
antries at  the  expense  of  the  frowzled 
waitress — Mr.  Squem  demanding  chill- 
ed grape-fruit  and  other  such  delicacies 
and  making  up  for  her  perturbation 
with  a  dollar  bill  at  the  end — the  meal 
passed  and  at  two  a  car-tink  arrived 
in  a  large  autombile  from  the  Dutch 
town.  The  distance  to  the  invalid 
Ariel  was  soon  covered,  such  of  the 
population  as  could  walk  footing  it  in 
wake  of  the  car — it  was  not  every  day 
that  such  things  happened.  The  ex- 
pert went  over  the  roadster  and  said  it 


82  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

could  travel  to  the  hospital  on  its  own 
wheels  and  a  farmer's  team  dragged  it 
slowly,  and  with  many  a  bump,  back  to 
the  road.  Seven  dollars  was  the  fee 
for  this  service.  "Dirt  cheap,"  the 
farmer  had  assured  Mr.  Squem,  who, 
in  answer,  remarked,  "You  got  every- 
thing, every  darned  thing,  but  the  bris- 
tles. " 

Then  the  automobile  man  attached 
the  roadster  by  chains  to  his  own  car 
and  the  start  was  made. 

On  the  journey,  pursued  at  some- 
thing more  than  twenty  miles  an  hour, 
but  characterised  by  Mr.  Squem  as 
"Some  toad  funeral" — Mr.  Robinson 
did  some  thinking.  He  was  still  in- 
wardly rocking  from  what  had  hap- 
pened— the  ' '  close-up ' '  to  death,  of  the 
morning,  and  the  weaving  head  of  a 
rattle-snake,  which  insisted  on  getting 
into  his  field  of  view,  had  repeatedly 
made  goose-flesh  rise  upon  him  through 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  83 

the  day.  He  was  much  put  out  by  the 
collapse  of  his  philosophy  before  the 
situation.  He  remembered — and  did 
not  like  to  remember — a  paper  on 
"The  Cultivation  of  Self-Sufficing- 
ness"  which  he  had  recently  read  be- 
fore a  group  of  cool  and  emancipated 
spirits  like  himself — its  upshot  and 
burden  being  that  to  the  soul  stripped 
of  superstitious  fancies  and  firmly 
grasping  life,  the  soul  reposing  upon 
itself  and  its  strength,  nothing  could 
really  happen.  He  had  drawn  freely 
upon  Emerson  and  the  Upanishads  in 
the  representation  of  this  view  which 
had  immensely  regaled  all  the  cool  and 
balanced  spirits  on  the  premises — elect 
samples  of  the  poised  who  had  regard- 
ed it  as  a  tribute  to  themselves.  And 
now — it  made  him  sick — he  had  been 
shaken  and  beaten  down  and  pulled 
about.  He  had  lost  balance,  and  been 
afraid — was  still  afraid !  It  was  rough 


84  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

on  the  self-sufficingness  theory,  and  es- 
pecially rough  on  Eustace  Robinson. 
And  it  had  all  been  so  different  with 
this  Mr.  Squem,  an  entirely  unreflec- 
tive,  not  to  say  absurd,  being,  of  at 
most  twelve  mental  years,  who  had 
been  not  the  least  thrown  off  balance, 
not  the  least  afraid:  who,  using  the 
most  primitive  materials,  seemed 
somehow  to  have  fashioned  a  weather- 
proof cosmos — one  that  met  test  by 
acting  and  working  like  a  cosmos,  and 
not  like  a  bad  umbrella.  Of  course 
one  might  be  amused — Mr.  Robinson 
had  been  considerably  amused — by  the 
naivete  of  the  man  and  by  the  archi- 
tecture of  his  shanty-town  cosmos. 
"The  Good  Man!"  thought  the  law- 
yer. "Ridiculous!  The  Good  Man!" 
— and  smiled.  The  smile  did  not  stay. 
Something  told  Mr.  Robinson — sud- 
denly jolting  again  toward  death,  sud- 
denly seeing  again  something  hideous- 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  85 

ly  weaving  in  his  path — that  Peter 
Squem  was  not  ridiculous;  that  what 
was  ridiculous  was  himself. 

It  may  be  that  this  nettled  him. 

"I've  been  thinking,"  he  said  as 
they  lurched  along,  "of  what  you  said 
this  morning  about  some  things  being 
up  to  the  Good  Man." 

Mr.  Squem  took  a  look  at  the  Ariel 
trailing  along  behind.  "Who  the  devil 
would  they  be  up  to?"  he  asked. 

"That's  just  it— just  it.  Who?  That's 
where  the  trouble  comes  in.  Some  of 
us  think  that  it's  really  that  that's  be- 
ing of  the  War" 

"All  you  got  to  do,"  said  Mr.  Squem 
cheerfully,  "is  to  use  the  brains  God 
gave  you — and  not  be  a  quitter.  Speak- 
ing of  the  War " 

"Wait    a   minute.      You    know,    of 
course,  that  there  can't  be  a  forty  mil-  . 
lion  mile  high  giant — a  big  good  mem 
— running  things  down  here.  We  can't 


86  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

think  that  sort  of  thing — sheer,  child- 
ish anthropomorphism — any  more." 

"I  know  a  nigger  barber  in  Paoli," 
said  Mr.  Squem,  "who'd  give  you  five 
dollars — five  anyway— for  that  word! 
What's  the  reason  you  can't  think 
that?  The  underpinning  is  sure  a  man 
— or  something  like  a  man.  Everybody 
says  'He,'  don't  they!" 

Mr.  Robinson  suddenly  reflected  that 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  was  doing  just  this 
very  thing. 

"Sure,  it  stands  to  reason,"  contin-. 
ued  Mr.  Squem,  then,  "Ease  her  up, 
George,  here's  a  bridge." 

"Well,  counting  that  out,"  said  Mr. 
Robinson,  "and  letting  the  man  part 
go,  what  is  there  to  prove  that  He's 
good?  .Look  at  the  world!  (a  bright 
woman  said  to  me  not  a  week  ago  that 
a  cow  could  have  arranged  a  better 
universe  than  this)  think  of  the  horri- 
ble snake  you  killed  this  morning!" 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  87 


<  < 


'He's  up  to  the  Good  Man  for 
fair,"  said  Mr.  Squem  with  something 
like  pity  in  his  voice.  "  Nobody  else 
can  take  care  of  him.*' 

"Do  you  know,"  asked  Mr.  Robin- 
son, "that  Flammarion,  the  astrono- 
mer, said,  not  long  ago,  that  this  is  a 
world  not  much  worth  fighting  for 
anyway " 

"Quitter!"  interrupted  Mr.  Squem, 
"Look  here,  let's  get  down  to  brass 
tacks.  I'm  not  living  in  a  world  that 
hasn't  got  the  best  that's  in  me,  be- 
hind it — seel  If  that  isn't  so,  every- 
thing's bug-house!  I'm  not  letting 
anything  smaller 'n  that  get  back  of 
things  and  run  the  works,  understand? 
I'll  ask  some  gent  to  kick  me — and 
real  hard — when  I  do,  though  honest 
I'd  be  too  punk  for  anybody  to  kick. 
Things  don't  look  good?  What  does 
that  Flim-flam  man  know  about  'em? 
I  know — come  on  the  road  a  week  with 


88  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

me,  just  one  little  week,  and  see.  A 
quitter  bets  the  boss  is  no  good — any- 
body can  lay  down  and  squeal — I'm 
playing  up — I've  got  to,  to  have  any 
use  for  myself — either  the  boss  is  all 
right  or  everything's  bug-house,  and 
I'm  no  quitter,  and  no  fooling  with  the 
works  for  me !  Think  that  and  you're 
bug-house.  I  say  he's  all  right — no, 
the  boss  of  these  works  is  no  bonehead 
and  I  put  every  cent  of  my  pile  on  the 
Good  Man.'* 

Then  the  perfectly  tragic  things  hap- 
pened. A  mite  of  a  child — she  could 
not  have  been  more  than  three — dart- 
ed through  the  gate  of  a  yard  they 
were  passing  and  out  into  the  road. 
She  was  a  winsome  thing,  dainty  and 
fairylike — Titian's  Virgin  of  the  Pres- 
entation grown  small.  Her  hair 
streamed  behind  her,  her  white  frock 
fluttered  in  the  breeze  she  was  making, 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  89 

as  she  chased  a  scrap  of  a  kitten.  The 
kitten  frolicked  toward  the  centre  of 
the  road,  and  the  child,  with  eyes  for 
nothing  else,  headed  suddenly  full  on 
the  car.  There  was  no  time — no  way 
— only  the  gleam  of  a  tiny  white  object 
in  front  and  then  a  quiver  of  the  heavy 
machine.  In  another  moment  three 
horror-stricken  men  leaped  from  their 
seats,  and,  a  few  feet  behind,  Peter 
Squem  gathered  in  his  arms  a  most 
lovely  but  no  longer  living  thing. 
"Poor  Lambie,"  he  said,  with  his  face 
torn  into  depths  whose  wonder  the 
lawyer  felt  in  the  thick  of  the  horror. 
4 'Poor  Lambie!" 

"Some  one  must  take  her  in  there/' 
said  Robinson,  pointing  to  the  house 
behind  the  trees,  "take  her  in  and  tell 
them.  God  knows  I  can't — I  can't!" 

"I  never  could,"  said  the  driver 
shaking  like  an  aspen,  "I've  got  one 
her  age.  I'd  die." 


90  MR.    SQUEM 


Peter  Squem  bore  the  little  burden 
through  the  gate  and  up  the  path.  He 
did  not  knock  at  the  door,  but  turned 
the  knob  and  entered.  A  sweet-faced 
woman  came  down  the  hall. 

"I've  got  the  baby,"  he  said.  "She 
ran  into  the  car.  I  wish  it  had  been 
me — but  it  was  her.  You've  got  to 
take  on,  and  you're  going  to  ache  to 
die — for  a  long — long  time — just  ache, 
to  die.  But  you  want  to  remember" 
— and  the  reeling  mother  looking  into 
his  eyes  had  the  feel  of  arms  beneath 
her  in  an  overwhelming  flood — "you 
want  to  remember  that  it's  going  to 
be  all  right  somehow — all  right  some- 
way. It's  up  to  the  Good  Man." 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES 


MB.  THORNTON 
THE  REV.  MR.  BOWLES  THE  DRIVER 

THE  man  with  the  string  tie  looked 
— and  was — precisely  the  sort  of 
person  to  call  a  book  "meaty,"  and 
he  was  riding  in  the  back  seat  of  the 
country  carriage  with  a  man  likely  to 
call  a  book  "inept."  Which  means 
that  neither  could  possibly  understand 
the  other. 

It  was  the  burying  of  Alexander 
Moffatt,  who  at  Selby's  Corners  had 
for  years  been  joining  house  to  house 
and  field  to  field,  and  now  desisted 
from  that  intense  and  silent  job.  For 
Alexander's  neighbours  the  future  life 
was  something  mixed  with  musical  in- 
93, 


94  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

struments  and  pervaded  by  aesthetic 
joys.  Alexander  did  not  in  the  least 
fit  into  that — would  not,  as  the  post- 
master had  once  remarked  in  another 
connection,  "corroborate"  with  that. 
He  had  left — or  relinquished — his 
farms,  and,  when  severed  from  them, 
utterly  dissolved. 

The  man  with  the  string  tie — minis- 
ter of  the  Baptist  Church  at  Selby's 
Corners — had  "preached  the  funeral. " 
The  difficulty  of  the  situation  had  been 
considerable,  and  the  dead  Alexan- 
der's face,  with  its  bull-dog  expression 
and  perfectly  straight-across  mouth, 
had  not  helped.  Therefore,  the  minis- 
ter had  been  noisy  and  emphatic  be- 
yond his  wont.  He  had  heavily  ground 
in  the  austere  fact  of  mortality,  and  at 
the  end  had  made  the  most  of  "not 
slothful  in  business,"  and  the  circum- 
stance that  Alexander  had  been  a  good 
provider.  After  this  a  quartette  with 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  95 

a  terribly  projecting  alto  had  sung 
"One  Sweet  Day." 

The  other  man  was  Alexander's 
nephew  by  marriage,  representing  a 
niece  by  blood  who  was  sick  and  un- 
able to  come.  He  was  a  city  lawyer, 
and  looked  the  part  in  garments,  face 
and  carriage.  His  wife  had  long  since 
sloughed  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
Moffatt  stirps.  Such  things  are  al- 
ways happening  in  America. 

The  sepulture  of  Alexander  had  im- 
pressed the  proxy  mourner  as  a  fas- 
cinating clinic  in  folk-lore.  At  the 
house  he  had  dimly  recalled  something 
of  Kipling's  about  pagan  rites  and 
American  middle-class  burials,  and 
something  else  of  Spencer's  about  the 
need  of  a  professional  religious  class 
to  keep  alive  the  sense  of  mystery  in 
the  breed.  At  the  grave  the  service 
had  been  in  charge  of  the  Independent 
Order  of  Bisons.  Their  ritual  had 


96  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

been  stickily  sentimental,  and  their 
chaplain  had  made  more  than  one  im- 
pressive reference  to  "the  diseased. " 
Then  they  had,  man  by  man,  deposited 
small  white  cloth  cut-outs  of  buffaloes 
in  the  grave,  and  withdrawn. 

"Just  like  the  South  Sea  Islands!" 
thought  Alexander's  nephew.  "These 
people  know  about  telephones  and  all 
that;  but  after  all,  it's  about  the 
same." 

Now,  on  the  way  back  from  the  cem- 
etery, the  two  ill-assorted  passengers 
had  nothing  to  say  to  each  other.  The 
gulf  between  them  so  asserted  itself  as 
to  discourage  even  talk  about  the 
weather.  The  driver  turned  conversa- 
tional and  came  to  the  rescue. 

"Well,  Reverend  Bowles,"  he  ob- 
served, "Alick's  gone  to  his  reward, 
all  right." 

The  minister  squirmed. 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  97 

"Most  too  good  to  damn,  an'  yet 
hardly  good  enough  to  save.  He  give 
thirty  dollars  toward  the  new  hose- 
cart  an*  helped  on  the  uniforms  for 
the  silver  cornet  band.  You  know  how 
he  laid  'em  all  out  at  the  big  festival 
you  had  for  foreign  missions.  An' 
yet,  if  he  was  after  a  farm,  my,  how 
anybody  got  stepped  on  that  come  in 
his  way — widows  or  orphans  or  any- 
body! It's  going  to  be  some  job  for 
the  Almighty  to  sift  things  out  with 
Alexander." 

"Why  should  you  think  any  Al- 
mighty must  sift  things  out?"  inquired 
the  nephew  by  marriage. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Bowles,  delighted 
to  have  Alexander  pushed  into  the 
background,  and  not  displeased  by  a 
promising  scent  of  battle,  instantly  un- 
limbered. 

"The  Word,"  he  answered  in  a  tone 


98  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

pugnaciously  pious,  "the  Word.  Ro- 
mans fourteen  and  ten  says  we  shall 
stand  before  the  judgment  seat,  and 
Second  Corinthians  five  and  ten  says 
the  same  and  more,  too ;  and  Hebrews 
nine  and  twenty-seven  tells  how  'it  is 
appointed  unto  men  once  to  die,  but 
after  this  the  judgment.'  Then  there's 
John's  Revelation,  which  says  right 
out,  "The  books  shall  be  opened'  — 
books,  understand.  See,  too,  Matthew 
twenty-five,  thirty-one  to  end." 

Mr.  Bowles  felt  it  a  happy  circum- 
stance that  he  had  preached  on  this 
subject  at  Conference  only  the  week 
before. 

The  driver  was  a  happy  man.  At 
his  livery  and  feed  establishment  he 
had  heard  that  "the  new  Reverend," 
lately  come  to  the  Corners,  was  mighty 
in  the  Scriptures,  and  that  he  owned 
above  three  hundred  books.  Would 
he  put  it  all  over  this  city  chap? 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  99 

"I  see,"  said  the  lawyer  pleasantly. 
"You  get  this  out  of  certain  old  writ- 
ings which  are  authority  for  you.  Mil- 
lions of  other  people,  in  blocks  of 
varying  sizes,  get  something  quite  dif- 
ferent out  of  other  old  writings  which 
are  authority  for  them.  Millions  more 
of  us  get  something  still  more  differ- 
ent out  of  no  writings  at  all.  Are  you 
entirely  sure  that  all  these  millions  are 
wrong,  and  that  you  alone  and  those 
with  you  have — excuse  me — picked  out 
the  ace?" 

Mr.  Bowles  had  never  preached 
about  anything  like  this,  and  did  not 
readily  find  a  text.  He  came  back, 
however,  after  a  pause,  with  words 
averring  that  spiritual  things  must  be 
spiritually  discerned. 

"I  see,"  said  the  lawyer  again. 
"You  have  picked  out  the  ace.  And 
when  any  one  has  done  that,  there's 


100  ME.    SQUEM    AND 

nothing  more  to  say.  Do  you  mind  if 
I  light  a  cigar?" 

Mr.  Bowles  did  mind,  but  did  not 
say  so;  and  he  did  not  understand 
why,  with  his  shots  so  well  aimed  and 
so  vigorously  sped,  he  did  not  feel 
more  comfortable. 

"Look  here,"  he  began,  "Mr. —  ah" 
-"Thornton." 

"Mr.  Thornton,  this  blessed  book," 
—he  held  up  his  Bible — "written  with 
the  finger  of  God  and  declaring  the 
whole  counsel  of  God,  says  we  shall  all 
stand  before  the  judgment  seat  and  all 
give  account.  It  tells  of  a  worm  that 
dieth  not  and  of  the  wrath  of  the 
Lamb.  It " 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know,"  interrupted  the 
lawyer.  "It  tells  of  a  great  many 
things  like  that,  and  what  it  says  about 
them  may  take  hold — doubtful,  though 
— of  three-tenths  of  the  present  popu- 
lation of  this  country.  You  belong  to 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES          101 

the  three-tenths.  The  other  seven- 
tenths  of  us  quietly  go  our  own  ways, 
leaving  you  happy  with  the  ace — which 
for  us  is  really  the  two-spot.  In  this 
matter  of  the  after-death" — he  blew 
a  column  of  smoke  in  the  air — "the 
seven-tenths  of  us  just  don't  know 
anything  about  it — anything.  We 
know  we're  here,  and  that's  all.  Even 
with  the  three-tenths,  or  a  good  many 
of  them,  you'd  find,  if  you  were  to  peel 
of  the  wrappings,  that  all  they  really 
know  and  are  sure  of  is  that  they're 
here.  They  wouldn't  bet  or  stake  their 
lives  on  anything  more.  Put  them  up 
against  a  crisis  and  see.  Of  course 
there  are  a  few  people,  like  Oliver 
Lodge,  who  think  they've  broken 

through  into  something,  but ' 

"Who,"  heatedly  demanded  Mr. 
Bowles,  finding  his  voice  at  last,  "who 
is  Senator  Lodge  compared  with  the 
Apostle  Paul?" 


102  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

"The  Apostle  Paul  remains  faintly 
part  of  'the  current  prejudice,'  as 
John  Morley  once  called  it.  He  talks 
about  judgment  seats  and  somebody 
to  stand  before  them  after  dying,  and 
we  respectfully  let  him  talk,  just  as  we 
respectfully  go  to  funerals  and  respect- 
fully listen  to  impossible  things.  You 
three-tenths  have  the  only  opinion  that 
is  organised — there  it  is — but  the  real 
general  conviction  is  miles  and  miles 
away  from  it.  The  bed-rock  is,  that 
we  know  we're  here.  When  it  comes 
to  the  scratch,  that  is  all  that  the 
seven-tenths  of  us — yes,  and  more — 
will  bet  on  or  stake  our  lives  on.  Put 
almost  anybody  against  a  crisis  and 
see." 

The  driver  stopped  his  horses  at  the 
Empire  Hotel,  and  left  his  passengers 
at  that  hostelry.  Mr.  Thornton,  mak- 
ing ready  for  supper,  repeated, 
"We're  here,  and  that's  all." 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  103 

Mr.  Bowles  felt  that  he  had  been  in 
conversation  with  a  damned  soul. 

Down  at  the  stable  the  driver  made 
report  to  certain  interested  friends: 
"The  new  Reverend  is  certainly  hell 
on  the  Bible.  What  sent  him  to  the 
ropes  was  the  lawyer's  gittin'  him  off 
the  track — away  from  the  subject. 
Their  way,  you  know." 

The  Empire  Hotel  burned  that  night, 
making  for  Selby's  Corners  what  the 
setting  up  of  Angelo's  David  made  for 
Florence — a  new  date  from  which  to 
reckon  time.  The  lawyer  and  the  min- 
ister, who  perforce  had  stayed  over 
night,  since  the  railroad's  one  daily 
train  would  not  leave  until  morning, 
were  the  only  persons  sleeping  on  the 
third  floor.  Awakened  by  the  yells  of 
the  entire  population,  they  threw  open 
their  room  doors,  only  to  recoil  before 
thick  clouds  of  choking  smoke.  Thorn- 


104  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

ton  crept  on  hands  and  knees  down  the 
narrow  hall  to  a  window.  Leaning  out 
to  breathe,  he  felt  presently  beside  him 
another  man — the  minister— who  in 
utter  panic  began  to  babble  incoherent 
prayers. 

"0  God!"  he  shrieked,  " remember 
thine  ancient  mercies !  Remember  I  'm 
in  the  ministry — a  family,  too,  0  God, 
you  know  that!  I  can't  die — just  can't 
die  and  go  away  from  all  I  know  to 
what  I  don't  know!  I've  got  work  to 
do  here — your  work!  Get  me  out  of 
this,  God — quick!" 

"Quiet,  man!"  said  Thornton.  "You 
want  your  head." 

"The  stairs  are  gone,"  wailed  on 
the  minister,  "and  we're  thirty  foot 
from  the  ground !  There's  fire  belchin* 
out  from  the  window  under  us,  too! 
To  die!" — the  wail  passed  into  an  ap- 
palling screech — "To  die,  die,  die! 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  105 

Where  are  you — are  you  anywhere, 
God?" 

The  ends  of  a  ladder  pushed  up 
through  the  smoke  to  the  window- 
ledge.  A  roar  of  voices  came  from 
the  crowd  below,  and  one  above  all 
others :  '  *  Quick,  before  it  burns !  Quick, 
for  God's  sake,  quick!" 

"On  to  it,  you!"  said  Thornton  to 
the  collapsing  Bowles.  "You  have 
children  and  I  haven't.  Hurry!" 

Bowles  swung  over  the  ledge,  still 
babbling.  He  began  to  make  his  way 
down.  Little  flames  were  licking  at 
the  ladder's  sides  and  rungs.  Five 
feet  below,  he  looked  back  at  the  win- 
dow, and,  as  the  craven  self  for  a  mo- 
ment cleared  out  of  his  features,  saw 
Thornton's  face,  with  a  look  on  it  he 
never  forgot — a  look  to  last  any  man's 
life.  He  knew  only  that  it  was  big — 
too  big  for  him  to  understand. 


106  MR.    SQUEM 


"But  you'll  die,"  he  screamed  a,s  he 
descended.  "I'm  to  live,  but  you'll — 
die!" 

"No!"  called  back  Thornton,  above 
the  crackle  and  through  the  smoke. 
"I'm  up  against  it  and  I've  changed 
my  mind!  I  know  I'm  here,  and  more 
than  here — more !  I  shall  not  die ! ' ' 

And  the  building  fell  in  with  a  crash 
as  Bowles  stood  safe  on  the  ground. 


VI 

ME.  SMILEY 
ME.  HUNTEE  ME.  BBADLEY 

IN  every  small  town  there  is  one 
business  man  who  wears  a  silk  hat. 
He  is  born  to  it ;  it  is  part  of  the  Great 
Order,  and  nobody  jeers.  Mr.  Hunter 
was  that  man  in  Parkerton. 

He  happened  one  night  into  Smiley 's 
drug-store,  and  while  the  proprietor 
was  putting  up  his  prescription  com- 
panionably  made  talk. 

"Potatoes  are  still  going  up,"  he 
observed.  "How  people  are  going  to 
get  on,  I  don't  see.  Did  you  hear  about 
that  fire  up  near  Harrisburg — farm- 
er's barn  with  eight  hundred  bushels 
of  potatoes,  I  think  it  was?  He  was 
107 


108  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

holding  them  for  a  higher  price — even 
when  they  were  out  of  sight.  I  think 
the  Lord  had  a  hand  in  that  fire." 

"You  could  hardly  say  that,  could 
you?"  inquired  a  gentleman  sitting  by 
the  stove. 

"Why  not,  Mr.  Bradley!  He  can  do 
what  He  wants,  can't  He!  And  if 
sparrows  don't  fall  without  His  notic- 
ing, I  guess  this  kind  of  piggishness 
gets  his  attention." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Bradley,  "but  you 
don't  think  God  set  that  barn  on  fire, 
do  you?" 

'  *  He  permitted  it  to  burn, ' '  answered 
Mr.  Hunter,  burnishing  his  hat;  "He 
permitted  it  to  burn." 

"Yes,  and  might  have  permitted  it 
if  the  farmer  had  been  selling  the  po- 
tatoes at  one-fourth  the  market,  or 
planning  to  give  them  to  the  Chil- 
dren's Home." 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  109 

"But  it  wasn't  that  way,"  said  Mr. 
Hunter. 

Mr.  Smiley,  having  wrapped  the 
prescription  with  much  deftness  and 
rung  fifty  cents  on  his  cash-register, 
entered  the  conversation. 

"I  saw  a  picture  the  other  day,"  he 
said,  "of  two  Testaments  which  had 
saved  soldiers'  lives  in  the  trenches. 
A  bullet  was  sticking  half-way  through 
one  of  them,  and  the  other  one  was 
pretty  nearly  torn  to  flinders.  What 
do  you  think  of  that?" 

"That  they  happened  to  be  in  the 
way, ' '  said  Mr.  Bradley.  *  *  One  of  those 
'Ford  Jokes'  books  or  an  almanac 
would  have  done  the  same  thing." 

"Well,  do  you  think  God  has  any- 
thing to  do  with  anything!"  inquired 
Mr.  Hunter  testily.  "I'm  glad  of  the 
chance  to  ask  you,  for  I  know  you 
never  go  to  church,  and  I  saw  a  book 
you  had  ordered  down  at  Brown's  yes- 


110  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

terday — Creative  Evolution,  by  Berg- 
man or  something  like  that — and  I 
heard  you  criticise  the  President  for 
appointing  a  day  of  prayer  for  peace. 
Do  you  think  God  has  anything  to  do 
with  anything?" 

"I  think,"  said  Mr.  Bradley,  "that 
God  has  everything  to  do  with  every- 
thing, and  I  think  that  God  is  much 
too  big  for  such  little  mites  as  we  to 
talk  about  or  think  about." 

Mr.  Smiley 's  drug-store  had  been 
the  scene  of  many  an  argument  and 
discussion  —  controllingly  political. 
Frequently  had  the  very  substantial 
blunders  of  the  President  been  pointed 
out  by  sundry  gentlemen,  and  his  sig- 
nal sagacities  by  others,  the  interested 
proprietor  listening  or  participating, 
the  while  he  took  care  of  trade  or  con- 
structed Smiley 's  Infallible  Troches. 
Debate  was  at  times  punctuated  by 
small  talk,  for  the  disputants  had  a 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  111 

genuine  interest  in  their  kind,  particu- 
larly such  of  it  as  dwelt  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  the  assemblage  had  once 
been  described  as  "the  sewing  circle," 
by  a  female  person  who  lived  opposite. 
From  which  it  may  be  inferred  that 
Smiley 's  was  quite  a  human  sort  of 
place.  It  had  not  gone  in  much  for  the 
gods,  however. 

"You  see,"  went  on  Mr.  Bradley, 
"you  people  who  seem  most  interested 
in  God — not  that  you  really  are — 
you  *  herded  and  branded'  religious 
people,  as  somebody  calls  you,  have 
God  mixed  up  with  such  little  things, 
and  you  keep  Him  pottering  with  such 
little  things — and  that  just  kills  God 
for  the  rest  of  us." 

Mr.  Hunter  was  acutely  conscious  of 
two  facts — that  of  being  under  fire  and 
that  of  his  eldership  in  the  Presbyte- 
rian Church. 

"Having  the  understanding  darken- 


112  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

ed,"  he  began  solemnly — and  his  hat 
seemed  like  a  mitre — "having  the  un- 
derstanding darkened 

"Not  on  your  life!*'  interrupted  Mr. 
Bradley  with  emphasis.  "It's  exactly 
the  other  thing.  It's  having  the  un- 
derstanding broadened  and  enlighten- 
ed that  makes  just  about  seventy-five 
of  every  hundred  men  in  the  average 
American  town  let  you  religious  peo- 
ple go  your  own  way.  It's  your  not 
having  enough  God  for  them  to  believe 
in,  that's  the  trouble.  It's  that  you 
will  keep  God  fussing  with  little 
things." 

Mr.  Smiley  got  a  tube  of  dentifrice 
for  a  customer  with  ill-dissembled 
haste.  He  did  not  wish  to  lose  a  word. 
Just  as  Mr.  Hunter  was  about  to  re- 
ply, there  was  a  fumbling  at  the  door, 
which  finally  opened,  and  admitted  the 
local  dipsomaniac,  Mr.  Book  Bevan, 
picturesquely  drunk.  Dilapidated,  un- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  113 

steady,  yet  urbane,  he  made  a  sweep- 
ing bow. 

"Doc,"  he  said,  "I  am  a  ree-novated 
man — all  ree-novated  up — and  as  a 
ree-novated  man  I  come  in  here  to  get 
you  to  go  along  to  Elder  Squigg's  tent 
and  get  ree-novated  like  I  done  last 
night.  The  Elder  says  for  me  to  do 
this  and  get  you  saved — ree-novated, 
understand — like  me." 

"Now,  if  you  can  resist  that, 
Smiley!"  put  in  Mr.  Bradley. 

The  wandering  eye  of  Mr.  Bevan 
rested  on  the  lawyer. 

"Ree-novated,"  he  murmured, 
"that's  it.  We  want  everybody  ree- 
novated;  every  damn — I  mean  every 
single — man  in  town  ree-novated. 
Only" — a  maudlin  pathos  stole  into 
his  tone — "everybody  can't  git  ree- 
novated.  You  can't" — here  a  finger 
shot  out  at  Mr.  Bradley — "for  you 
ain't  got  any  more  religion  than  one 


114  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

of  them  bull-fightin'  cuspidors.  You 
can" — the  finger  veered  to  Mr.  Hun- 
ter— "for  no  man  can  wear  that  plug 
hat  and  not  be  called." 

He  made  his  way  uncertainly  to  the 
show-case  behind  which  Mr.  Smiley 
was  standing. 

"I  want  alcohol,"  he  said,  with 
something  of  a  child's  pleading  in  his 
voice;  "please,  doc,  I  want  alcohol." 

The  show-case  was  a  low,  all-glass 
affair,  with  sundry  shelves,  also  of 
glass,  and  laden  with  numerous  small 
articles,  suspended  within.  When  Mr. 
Book  Bevan  tripped  and  fell  on  and 
into  this  case,  the  ensuing  crash  was 
brilliant.  Two-thirds  of  his  body  was 
down  among  pomades,  shattered  vials, 
and  tooth-brushes,  while  his  legs  ges- 
ticulated wildly  above.  The  effect  was 
striking  and  brief.  He  was  dragged 
forth  almost  instantly,  and  Mr.  Smiley, 
wiping  "Maiden  Blush"  and  other  cos- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES          115 

metics  from  the  luckless  features,  af- 
fixed court-plaster  to  certain  ugly  cuts. 

''Shall  I  telephone  for  the  mar- 
shal!" asked  Mr.  Hunter. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Mr.  Smiley;  "poor 
devil,  he  sort  of  looks  to  me  to  jolly 
him  along  and  see  to  him — and  it  sort 
of  seems  up  to  me  to  do  it.  Wait  a  jiff 
till  I  give  him  something  quieting  and 
get  him  to  bed.  He's  got  a  cubby  in 
the  building  next  door." 

Mr.  Bevan,  with  his  countenance 
pleasantly  diversified  by  the  bits  of 
court-plaster  and  supported  by  the 
arm  of  Mr.  Smiley,  beamed  amiably 
as  he  withdrew. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "everybody 
can't  git  ree-novated. " 

Mr.  Smiley,  returning  ten  minutes 
later,  surveyed  the  ruin  which  -had 
been  a  show-case  a  bit  ruefully. 

"It'll  set  me  a  plumb  hundred,"  he 


116  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

said,  "and  I  do  need  the  hundred. 
Well,  I'll  put  it  down  with  the  twenty- 
five  I  dug  up  to  get  him  the  Keeley. 
If  I  need,  gee,  how  he  needs! — Let's 
get  our  minds  off  of  this.  When  Book 
broke  in,  you  was  saying  something 
about  God's  fussing  with  little  things, 
Mr.  Bradley,  and  I  think  Mr.  Hunter 
was  getting  ready  to  come  back." 

Mr.  Hunter  had  been  getting  ready, 
and  had  utilised  certain  moments  of 
Mr.  Bevan's  stay  in  the  process.  He 
had  not  been  for  years  teacher  of  a 
men's  Bible  class  for  nothing,  and  now, 
with  his  batteries  well  placed,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  a  conventional  and  very  well 
executed  declaration  of  the  whole  coun- 
sel of  God,  as  deduced  and  held  by  re- 
ligionists of  his  kind.  It  began  with 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  abounded  in  cov- 
enants and  decrees,  and  was  every- 
where stiffened  with  texts — a  miracu- 
lous number  of  them,  it  seemed  to  Mr. 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  117 

Smiley,  who  was  much  impressed.  Mr. 
Hunter  fancied  comfortably  that  the 
scale  had  been  big  enough. 

"The  whole  human  race,"  he  said, 
''figures  in  this  mighty  drama — the 
whole  human  race!" 

"Oh,  dear,  oh,  dear!*'  said  Mr. 
Bradley;  "what's  the  use?  Don't  you 
see  that  you  make  God  ridiculously 
small  when  you  keep  Him  eternally 
nosing  round  among  such  small  fry  as 
the  human  race?  Don't  you  see  that 
that's  the  trouble?  People  nowadays 
don't  believe  that  God  does  anything 
of  that  kind.  'The  Lord  Talketh  Fa- 
miliarly with  Moses' — that's  a  chap- 
ter-head in  the  Bible.  I  don't  believe 
He  did.  Neither  do  folks  in  general. 
They  feel  just  as  Carlyle  did  when  he 
said  that  it  was  as  sure  as  shooting 
that  such  things  never  happened.  They 
feel  as  a  late  English  prime  minister 
did  when  he  said  that  such  conceptions 


118  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

stifled  him.  It's  all  like  painting  God 
with  whiskers,  as  the  Old  Masters  used 
to  do." 

A  small  boy  of  four  in  an  Oliver 
Twist  suit  came  into  the  store  and  de- 
manded a  stick  of  licorice,  which  Mr. 
Smiley  provided,  with  the  adjuration, 
"Skip." 

The  conversation  was  not  resumed. 
Mr.  Hunter  seemed  stalled  and  Mr. 
Bradley  hopeless.  Then  said  Mr. 
Smiley — 

"Now  you  know  I'm  just  an  ordin- 
ary man.  You,  Mr.  Bradley,  are  a  law- 
yer, and  you  read  a  lot  of  books,  too, 
everybody  says.  A  man  told  me  the 
other  day  he'd  bet  you've  read  a  thou- 
sand books.  And  you,  Mr.  Hunter, 
are  a  great  Bible  scholar,  if  you  are  in 
the  dry-goods  line — and  you've  been 
to  the  Holy  Land.  I'm  not  in  the  same 
class  with  either  of  you.  You  know 
that  weepy-lookin'  dog  of  Alick  Me- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  119 

Cue's?  Some  one  asked  Alick  what 
breed  he  was,  and  Alick  says,  'Oh,  no 
particular  breed — just  dog.'  That's 
me.  But  just  as  a  plain  proposition 
and  as  it  hits  a  plain  man  in  the  drug 
business,  Mr.  Bradley 's  God  seems  to 
be  too  busy  with  everything  to  attend 
to  any  particular  thing,  and  Mr.  Hun- 
ter's God  too  busy  with  particular 
things  to  attend  to  everything.  Hon- 
est, that's  about  the  way  it  seems  to 
me." 

There  was  an  interlude  while  a  soda- 
water  patron  was  served.  Then  Mr. 
Smiley  continued, — 

"About  God,  you  know,  I  get  my 
idea  from  Samuel." 

"Ah,  the  prophet?"  asked  Mr.  Hun- 
ter with  the  pleased  expression  of  one 
expecting  reinforcement. 

"Goodness,  no,"  said  Mr.  Smiley. 
"The  rat  who  was  here  for  licorice — 
my  Samuel.  You  see,  he  plays  a  lot 


120  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

with  his  choo-choos  and  things  about 
the  house,  all  alone.  Sometimes  a  half 
day  '11  go  without  his  seeing  his  mother 
— she'll  be  at  work  in  the  kitchen  or 
somewhere,  and  he  in  another  part  of 
the  house.  Doesn't  seem  to  miss  her. 
Doesn't  seem  to  know  he  has  a  mother. 
But  don't  you  make  any  mistake.  He 
can  forget  her  only  because  he  knows 
she 's  there.  He  can  get  all  wrapped  up 
in  his  choo-choos  and  things,  only  be- 
cause he's  got  a  sure  feel  of  her  being 
there.  If  it  once  came  to  him  that  she 
wasn't  there — well,  I  wouldn't  like  to 
have  it  happen,  for  he'd  cry  his  heart 
out.  He  pretty  nearly  did  it  once,  too, 
when  he  wanted  something  of  her  and 
she'd  slipped  out  for  five  minutes. 

1 '  Well,  I  says  to  myself,  noticing  this 
about  Samuel,  isn't  it  a  good  deal  the 
same  about  people  and  God?  They 
forget  Him,  but  they  know  He's  there; 
and  they  couldn't  wrap  themselves  all 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  121 

up  in  their  jobs  and  things,  and  go  on 
having  a  fairly  good  time,  if  they  did- 
n't know — or  feel — that  He  was  there. 
Of  course,  they  don't  know  what  He's 
doing — Samuel  could  never  guess 
what  his  mother  was  doing  in  the 
kitchen — and  if  they  did,  they  could- 
n't understand  it,  any  more  than  Sam- 
uel understands  a  lot  his  mother  does. 
They  just  know — or  feel — that  He's  in 
the  house.  Just  in  the  house.  That's 
the  way  it  is  with  me,  and  a  lot  of 
other  plain  men  like  me,  I  do  believe." 

A  month  after  this  conversation  at 
Smiley 's  the  country  went  to  war. 
There  was  enlisting  and  recruiting, 
and  three  self-forgetting  men — the 
three  who  had  met  at  the  drug-store 
— put  themselves  at  the  Nation's  serv- 
ice, and  were  accepted  and  ordered 
with  their  company  to  a  mobilisation 
camp.  They  might,  so  rumour  said,  be 


122  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

sent  to  France  to  fight  in  the  trenches, 
and  with  this  possibility  before  them 
they  said  good-bye  to  their  friends, 
amid  the  waving  of  flags  and  blaring 
of  bands,  at  the  train. 

"Good-bye,"  said  Mr.  Hunter  to  the 
young  men  of  his  Bible  Class  who  had 
escorted  him  to  the  station.  "Remem- 
ber me  when  you  pray.  I  don't  mean, 
ask  God  to  do  particular  things  for 
me,  for  God  has  everything  to  do  with 
everything,  and  this  that  we're  going 
in  for  may  reach  beyond  humanity  and 
beyond  this  planet.  Only  think  of  me 
when  you  think  of  God — remember  me 
when  you  pray." 

"Good-bye,"  said  Br.  Bradley,  grasp- 
ing the  hand  of  his  law-partner  and 
closest  friend.  "It  has  been  a  tug  to  do 
this,  but  I  have  orders — orders,  Frank ! 
Do  you  know" — he  was  clearly  agi- 
tated— "I  have  almost  the  sense  of  a 
hand  on  my  shoulder — almost  the 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  123 

sense  of  a  voice  talking  familiarly  in 
my  ear?'* 

" Good-bye,*'  said  Mr.  Smiley  to  the 
small  Samuel.  "I  don't  know  how  I'm 
going  to  stand  for  it,  old  chum,  I  sure 
don't.  I  just  couldn't  go  if  it  wasn't 
for  one  thing:  we're  going  to  make 
'em  stop  taking  their  daddies  away 
from  little  tads  like  you." 

And  the  collar  of  the  Oliver  Twist 
suit  was  moist,  as  he  pressed  its  wear- 
er close  to  his  heart. 


vn 

JUDGE  ABBUTHNOT 
MB.  JONES  DB.  KENNEDY 

TIE  the  heart  of  a  bat  with  a  red 
silken  string  to  the  right  arm, 
and  you  will  win  every  game  at  cards 
you  play.' 

"If  you  please!"  said  the  man  sit- 
ting opposite.  "In  the  language  of 
the  natives,  what-fer  book  is  that, 
Judge?" 

The  third  man  at  the  Club  dining- 
table  smiled.  "I've  a  fancy  I  know," 
he  said.  "Isn't  it  'The  Long  Lost 
Friend?'  " 

"None  other,"  replied  the  Judge, 
and  read  the  title-page  of  the  thin  lit- 
tle black-bound  volume:  "  'The  Long 

125 


126  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

Lost  Friend,  Containing  Mysterious 
and  Invaluable  Arts  and  Remedies  for 
Man  as  well  as  Animals.'  There  you 
have  it,  and  of  all  the  incredible  luna- 
cies !  A  friend  sent  it  to  me  as  a  curi- 
osity, but  I  want  to  say  that  it  is  one 
of  the  most  depressing  things  I  have 
met  in  long." 

"Let's  have  a  look,"  said  the  man 
who  had  asked  for  information — a 
manufacturer  named  Jones,  —  and 
leafed  the  book  through,  as  the  others 
lighted  their  cigars. 

"Some  colossal  work,"  he  remarked. 
"Look  here!  Your  job  will  suffer,  Dr. 
Kennedy,  if  this  gets  to  be  a  best- 
seller. All  you  have  to  do  for  whoop- 
ing cough  is  cut  three  bunches  of  hair 
from  the  head  of  a  child  who  has  never 
seen  its  father,  sew  the  hair  in  an  un- 
bleached rag  and  hang  it  around  the 
neck  of  the  sufferer.  Here's  a  pre- 
caution against  injuries — the  right 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES          127 

eye  of  a  wolf  fastened  inside  the 
sleeve.  Look  at  this  double-barrelled 
thing:  you  write  this  acrostic  on  pa- 
per, and  chuck  it  into  a  fire,  which  will 
at  once  go  out;  or  else  you  put  it  in 
your  cow's  feed  and  she  can't  be 
'hexed.'  Here's  something  for  me: 
'To  win  a  lawful  suit' — I've  got  one. 
I'm  to  take  some  of  the  largest  kind 
of  sage,  and  write  the  names  of  the 
twelve  apostles  on  the  leaves,  and  put 
them  in  my  shoes  before  I  enter  the 
court-house,  and  appear  before  Judge 
Arbuthnot  here." 

"I  know  the  book,  as  I  said,"  re- 
marked Dr.  Kennedy.  "I  don't  see 
why  it  should  depress  anybody.  I  find 
it  good  fun." 

''Not  if  you  think,"  said  Judge  Ar- 
buthnot, "not  if  you  remember  that 
people  have  actually  trusted  this  book 
and  its  madness  and  are  almost  cer- 
tainly doing  it  now.  I  know  it  was 


128  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

first  published  many  years  ago  when 
people  were  less  enlightened,  but 
please  notice  that  this  copy  was  print- 
ed not  so  long  back.  I  gravely  fear 
that  many  are  committed  to  these 
monstrous  superstitions.  Certainly 
this  is  depressing.  I  can  not  share 
your  levity  over  the  book." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  Mr.  Jones 
easily.  "That  sort  of  thing  doesn't 
hurt  people  much.  They  aren't  any 
less  honest  or  useful  for  having  a  few 
superstitions.  Take  that  darkey  who 
just  brought  you  your  check.  He's 
none  the  worse  for  the  rabbit's  foot  in 
his  pocket — and  more  interesting  for 
it;  I  don't  know  but  more  human  for 
it.  Mighty  good  people  do  some  of 
those  'Long  Lost  Friend'  things — 
kick  about  passing  under  ladders,  for 
instance,  or  carry  dried  lemon-peel  in 
their  pockets,  or  something  like  that. 
We  all  have  to  eat  our  peck  of  dirt, 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  129 

and  perhaps  we  need  it,  as  birds  do 
gravel. ' ' 

"Speaking  of  lemon-peel,"  said  the 
Doctor,  "you  remember  Emerson's 
owning  up  that  he  once  carried  a 
horse-chestnut — or  was  it  a  potato? — 
about  with  him  against  rheumatism. 
Very  efficacious,  he  said,  as  he  never 
had  it  afterward,  and  he  thought  it 
must  have  worked  backward,  as  he  had 
never  had  it  before." 

"Yes,  and  old  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson," 
said  Mr.  Jones.  "Didn't  he  have  a 
full  cargo  of  superstitions — always 
entering  a  room  with  the  right  foot  in 
advance,  you  know,  and  touching  every 
rung  of  a  balustrade,  and  so  on  and 
so  on?  Those  things  never  hurt  him, 
and  they  make  him  a  lot  more  pictur- 
esque." 

The  three  puffed  at  their  cigars  for 
an  interval. 

"I  try  to  see  your  side  of  it,"  Judge 


130  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

Arbuthnot  observed,  "but  I  wonder  if 
you  get  below  the  surface.  I  wonder 
if  you  remember  voodooism  or  recall 
witchcraft,  or  realise  the  dreadful 
things  for  which  superstition  has  been 
responsible  in  the  past.  Truly,  I  feel 
something  like  nausea  as  I  look  at  this 
horrible  little  book.  To  think  that  peo- 
ple are  to-day  fooling  with  such  things 
— things  that  belong  to  jungle  life  and 
jungle  ways!" 

"I  wouldn't  take  it  so  hard,  Judge," 
said  Dr.  Kennedy.  "  These  things  mean 
only  a  kind  of  good-natured  betting  on 
the  inconceivable  possibilities  of  the 
universe — and  enough  of  those  have 
been  revealed  to  justify  betting  on 
'most  anything.  People  in  general  have 
left '  The  Long  Lost  Friend '  a  long  way 
behind  by  this,  and  their  little  irra- 
tionalities here  and  there  are  only 
proofs  of  their  living  wonder  at  the 
universe  and  their  consequent  alive- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES          131 

ness  in  it.  I  wouldn't  worry  over  the 
discovery  of  such  a  survival." 

"Little  symptoms  often  mean  seri- 
ous things,"  replied  the  Judge.  "The 
one  hope  for  our  advance  lies  in  what 
Huxley  called  'veracity  of  thought.*  I 
am  disturbed  by  finding  in  print  to- 
day such  a  foe  to  that  as  is  this  book 
— yes,  genuinely  disturbed  and  de- 
pressed." 

Mr.  Jones  borrowed  "The  Long 
Lost  Friend,"  and  the  three  men  sep- 
arated. 

Judge  Arbuthnot  was  to  take  an 
early  morning  train  on  the  following 
day.  He  was  driven  in  his  car  to  the 
station,  and  saw  on  the  platform  there 
three  bodies  awaiting  a  train. 

"Are  those  corpses  all  to  go  on  the 
six-fifty?"  he  asked  of  the  baggage- 
agent. 

"Yes,  Judge  Arbuthnot,  all  three." 


132  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

"Henry,"  said  the  Judge  to  his 
chauffeur,  "I  can  not  go  until  to-night, 
after  all.  Drive  home." 

He  went  that  night.  As  the  train 
started,  there  entered  his  Pullman  a 
friend  who  congratulated  him  upon  his 
fine  physical  form. 

"It's  good  that  Grippe  hasn't  caught 
you,  Judge,"  he  said,  "it's  landed  on 
nearly  everybody." 

"Safe  so  far,"  Judge  Arbuthnot  re- 
plied— and  rapped  with  his  fingers 
upon  the  wooden  arm  of  the  car  seat. 

Behind  the  curtains  of  his  berth  the 
Judge  found  a  clothes-hanger,  and 
having  achieved  the  acrobatics  of  un- 
dressing disposed  his  garments  upon 
the  same  and  sank  to  sleep.  The 
white-jacketed  porter,  coming  along  an 
hour  later,  stopped  at  Section  Seven. 

"If   we    wasn't   honest,"    he    said, 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES          133 

stooping  over,  "  these  ca'leless  passen- 
gers surely  would  get  their  jolts." 

And  he  picked  up  what  had  slid 
from  Judge  Arbuthnot's  pocket — four 
silver  coins,  a  knife  aiid  some  bits  of 
dried  lemon-peel. 


VIII 

THE  REVEREND  AMBROSE  HOETON 
MB.  THORPE  THE  BRAKEMAN 

THE  Reverend  Ambrose  Horton 
had  always  maintained  the  com- 
plete moral  right  of  a  clergyman  to 
smoke.  So  it  peculiarly  exasperated 
him  that  he  should  feel  uncomfortable 
while  wearing  a  clerical  suit  in  a  smok- 
ing car.  This,  and  not  draughts,  was 
at  the  bottom  of  his  retaining  his  over- 
coat on  the  rather  mild  morning  he 
was  riding  from  Baltimore  to  Wash- 
ington. He  felt  it  dissembled  his 
rabat. 

"I  guess,"  said  his  seat-mate,  dis- 
pelling this  impression,  "I  probably 
belong  to  your  Church — or  did,  before 

135 


136  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

I  married  a  Methodist.  You're  an 
Episcopalian,  aren't  you!" 

Mr.  Horton  bowed. 

"Well,  I  was  one,  but  I've  gone  with 
her,  since  we  were  married  eight  years 
ago.  It  sort  of  seemed  right — she  was 
all  wrapped  up  in  her  Church.  So  I've 
gone  with  her.  That  is,  sometimes." 

"Not  regularly?" 

'  *  N-no ;  only  once  in  a  while.  But  I 
"kind  of  thought  I  ought  to  give  up, 
you  know — go  with  her  when  I  do  go. 
That's  mostly  in  the  winter.  Except 
then  I  generally  golf  Sundays." 

"May  I  ask  where  you  live!"  en- 
quired Mr.  Horton. 

"Certainly — Cincinnati.  I  sell  hard- 
ware out  of  that  town — my  name  is 
Thorpe — and  have  been  doing  it  ever 
since  I  was  twenty-one,  fourteen  years 
ago.  On  the  road  all  the  time  except 
Sundays,  and  those  days  a  caddy-bag 
looks  good  to  little  Willie." 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES          137 

Mr.  Horton  politely  declined  a  cigar 
and  refilled  his  pipe. 

"You  interest  me,"  he  said.  "I  live 
in  a  Pennsylvania  city  of  the  third 
class — a  rather  enterprising  and  pro- 
gressive town  within  easy  reach  of  the 
great  centres.  If  you  sell  goods  there 
— and  I  imagine  you  do — you  know 
it's  alive.  Well,  anything  like  general 
Sunday  golf  is  unknown  there — 
wouldn't  go  there.  A  few  venture- 
some individuals  at  most  go  in  for  it. 
In  general,  it  would  be  looked  at — 
well,  obliquely." 

Mr.  Thorpe's  reception  of  this  was 
laconic — expressed  in  the  brief  voca- 
ble "Woof!" 

"That  sort  of  thing  is  viewed  as  the 
Sunday  theatre  is  viewed,"  went  on 
Mr.  Horton.  "I  believe  you  have  that 
also  in  Cincinnati?" 

"Sure,"  said  Mr.  Thorpe. 

"I  think  that  in  a  majority  of  East- 


138  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

era  towns  such  as  mine  Sunday  golf 
and  Sunday  theatres  go  together—- 
and don't  go.  The  community-sense 
holds  both  to  be  a  moral  let-down.  As 
you  go  West,  it  doesn't  seem  to  do 
that." 

"I  think,"  said  Mr.  Thorpe,  "that 
you  ought  to  wake  up  and  hear  the 
birdies  sing.  The  idea  of  anybody's 
getting  the  dog-eye  because  he  plays 
golf  on  Sunday!  And  where  is  there 
any  harm  in  seeing  a  good  play  on 
Sunday  night?  I  would  do  it  if  I 
wanted  to,  but  golf  is  about  all  I  care 
for — except  an  occasional  horse-race. 
I  certainly  do  love  to  see  the  ponies 
run." 

"I  can  understand  that,"  replied 
Mr.  Horton,  "and  I  don't  see  why  you 
shouldn't.  The  racing  itself  has  really 
nothing  to  do  with  the  betting  and  so 
on  which  makes  the  prejudice  against 
it." 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  139 

"Sure,"  said  Mr.  Thorpe  again. 
"That's  what  queers  it,  and  you  ought 
to  be  careful.  I  do  once  in  a  while 
put  a  dollar  or  so  on  a  horse — never 
more  than  two — just  to  add  to  the  in- 
terest; and,  say,  one  afternoon — what 
do  you  suppose  ? — I  put  out  two  dollars 
to  start  and  came  away  with  three 
hundred  and  eighty-one !  Honest !  My 
wife  never  liked  that  part  of  it,  some- 
way, but  I  stopped  on  the  road  home 
and  picked  up  a  pair  of  dandy  por- 
tieres she'd  had  her  eye  on,  and  she 
didn't  say  so  much." 

The  clergyman  sighed. 

"Ethics  are  an  awful  mess  nowa- 
days," he  said.  "The  Puritans  had 
an  easy  time:  just  two  bins,  and  no 
possibility  of  making  mistakes.  We 
have  fifty  bins  and  make  a  lot  of  them. 
I  do  not  adjust  to  the  modern  situa- 
tion and  I  get  severely  jolted.  Here  is 
the  woman  who  smokes — she  is  every- 


140  MR.    SQUEM 


where  with  her  cigarettes,  and  more 
everywhere  every  day.  Not  the  reck- 
less, but  the  really  nice  type,  you  un- 
derstand; not  the  'smart/  but  the  su- 
perior woman.  For  people  of  the  old 
regime — 

Mr.  Thorpe,  who  had  grown  very 
grave,  interrupted. 

"That,"  he  said,  "is  the  limit.  That 
is  darn  near  horrible.  I've  heard  how 
much  you  do  of  that  in  the  East,  and 
I  want  to  say  that  such  things— 

"Washington!"  bawled  the  brake- 
man,  and  stopping  by  the  two  gentle- 
men said: 

"You  never  can  tell,  can  you?  That 
skirt  I  helped  off  at  the  last  station 
you'd  a  said  was  a  perfect  lady — but 
you  never  can  tell.  *  Careful, '  she  says 
as  I  helped  her  down,  'careful,  I've 
had  an  accident  to  my  leg.'  Leg,  gee- 
whiz!" 


IX 

THE  REVEREND  JUSTIN  HUNT 
DOCTOR  HENDERSON  MR.  BLOGGS 

THE  Reverend  Justin  Hunt  stood 
beside  his  wife's  bed  at 
3:15  A.  M. 

"There's  a  strange,  blind  thing,"  he 
said,  "roaming  about  this  house.  It 
came  upstairs  ahead  of  me  just  now 
and  went  into  the  study.  I'm  not 
afraid  of  it,  but" — his  language  was 
as  unclerical  as  the  bath-robe  he  was 
wearing — "I'd  like  to  know  what  the 
devil  it  is." 

The  non-neurotic  lady  in  the  bed  had 
waked  at  the  creaking  of  the  stairs 
and  had  called  her  husband's  name, 
with  this  sequel. 

141 


142  MR.    SQUEM   AXD 

"Mercy,  Justin!"  she  said,  "what 
do  you  mean!  Get  yourself  together 
— come,  be  sane." 

"I  am  together,  all  right,"  he  an- 
swered. "I  fell  awake  a  couple  of 
hours  back — maybe  it  was  the  spa- 
ghetti, I  don't  know — and  went  to 
mulling  over  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  book, 
'Raymond,'  in  the  sitting-room.  Wait, 
I  wasn't  reading  the  seance  part  at 
all,  but  the  mighty  good  stuff  at  the 
end,  the  'Life  and  Death' — I  think  it 
ought  to  be  all  of  the  book,  and  the 
rest  chucked — and  then ' 

"Well?" 

"Well,  then  this  strange,  blind  thing 
began  to  get  into  the  game — began  to 
grow  up  around  me.  I  just  wasn't 
alone — felt  in  my  bones  I  wasn't 
along.  I  picked  up  Life,  and  read  Mr. 
Martin's  editorials — well,  it  was  there. 
Then  I  went  and  brewed  some  coffee, 
and  it  was  there — in  the  kitchen.  I'm 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  143 

not  an  ass,  Marie,  and  I  don't  see 
things  at  night — you  know  that." 

"Did  you  see  this?" 

"Certainly  not;  more,  and  a  lot 
more.  Felt  it — felt  it  in  my  bones,  as 
I  said,  and  to  my  boots.  Heavens,  the 
feel  of  it !  It  was  with  me  all  the  way 
upstairs — up  to  the  time  you  spoke, 
and  then  it  seemed  to  crack  and  go 
through  the  study  door." 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  divorce 
you,"  said  the  lady,  "but  we're  not 
going  to  have  any  more  spaghetti  at 
night.  Why  do  you  call  it  blind?" 

"I  give  you  my  word  I  don't  know," 
said  the  Reverend  Justin.  "I  just 
have  to.  See  here,  Marie,  you  must 
know  I'm  pretty  well  wrenched,  or  I'd 
never  tell  you  this.  Don't  chaff — in 
God's  name,  don't  chaff!  I've  just 
met — and  I  don't  care  whether  it's 
outer  or  inner — something  horribly  un- 
canny, something  outside  of  life  which 


144  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

oughtn't  to  get  at  life — which  beats 
life  down  if  it  does.  I'm  not  afraid  of 
it — only  horrified — and  I'll  prove  it!" 
He  was  gone  from  the  bedside,  and 
in  thirty  seconds  there  was  a  heavy 
fall  on  the  floor  of  the  study. 

•  •*••• 

His  physician  allowed  him  to  leave 
his  bed  in  ten  days,  giving  a  six-syl- 
labled name  to  what  had  brought  him 
there,  and  then,  uttering  the  single 
word  "Rest,"  withdrew.  A  devoted 
congregation  provided  for  the  rest,  the 
clergyman  kissed  the  non-neurotic  lady 
good-bye,  and  exactly  two  weeks  from 
the  night  of  his  collapse  arrived  in  St. 
Augustine.  He  sat  that  evening,  de- 
clericalized  and  with  a  distinct  sense 
of  freedom,  in  a  wonderful  hotel, 
watching  the  brilliant  parade  of  laces 
and  diamonds,  and  noting  the  dog-like 
convoy  of  heavy  beeves  in  evening 
clothes  who  paid  the  bills.  The  man  in 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  145 

the  chair  at  his  left  spoke  startlingly 
to  his  thought. 

"Chewing-gum  dukes  and  breakfast- 
food  barons,"  he  said.  "Rings  in  their 
noses,  poor  devils.  They  do  feed, 
though.  Look  at  their  paunches." 

"Not  much  soul,  certainly,"  replied 
the  Reverend  Justin. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  the  man  in  the 
chair  on  the  right,  cutting  in,  "you 
have  to  use  words,  of  course,  but  I 
wouldn't  use  that  word.  It  isn't  'souP 
that's  lacking — it's  just  that  these 
chaps  aren't  really  live  animals.  I 
suppose  that  is  what  you  mean.  'Soul' 
is  just  re-acting  to  something  more 
than  cocktails  and  bills-of-fare, — being 
a  live  animal.  Hold  it  to  that,  and 
you're  all  right,  but  you  have  to  look 
out  not  to  tangle  it  up  with — oh,  well, 
things  above  living  and  superstitious 
things. ' ' 

"If  you   don't   tangle   it   up   with 


146  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

things  above  living "  began  the 

clergyman. 

"Then  you  are  safe  from  such  mel- 
ancholy moonshine  as  has  come  recent- 
ly from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  Have  you 
seen  his  last  book!  And  what  do  you 
think  of  a  mind  like  his  condescending 
to  tipping  tables  and  mediums  and  all 
the  rest  of  it?" 

The  mention  seemed  to  block  reply 
with  the  Reverend  Justin.  The  man 
at  the  left  who  had  been  industriously 
smoking  pointed  across  the  lobby. 

"You  see  that  little  shrimp  over 
there  by  the  cigar-stand  ? ' '  he  enquired. 
"Well,  I've  seen  him  around  here, 
looking  kind  of  lost  and  lonely  and 
generally  half-baked,  for  two  or  three 
days.  Yesterday  I  made  up  to  him — 
looked  as  if  he  needed  it — but  didn't 
get  any  come-back.  Acted  brain- 
scared.  Somebody  says  to  me  after- 
ward, *  Heavens,  he's  a  first  family  of 


SOME   MALE  TRIANGLES  147 

Philadelphia!'  Seemed  to  think  I 
ought  to  cash  up  to  somebody  for  the 
privilege  of  speaking  to  him.  Funny, 
wasn't  it?" 

1 '  I  wonder, ' '  he  went  on  after  an  in- 
terval, "if  you  gentlemen  would  feel 
like  taking  a  ride  in  the  morning.  A 
coon  who  drives  one  of  these  two- 
seated  carriages  you  see  everywhere 
was  telling  me  about  the  Ponce  de 
Leon  Spring.  He  says  old  Ponce  de 
Leon  is  buried  out  there  and  that  folks 
ought  to  see  it.  Of  course  it  would 
cost  a  lot  less  for  three  than  for  one. 
What  do  you  say?" 

Mr.  Hunt  and  the  man  on  the  right 
said  yes,  and  the  three  gave  each  other 
their  respective  names.  He  on  the  left 
proclaimed  himself  Mr.  Simon  Bloggs, 
and  readily  added  that  he  was  a  county 
sheriff  from  Michigan,  making  his  first 
visit  to  the  East.  The  gentleman  who 
objected  to  'soul'  produced  cards  read- 


148  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

ing,  "  Ernest  Douglas  Henderson, 
M.D."  Mr.  Hunt,  uttering  the  mono- 
syllable which  labelled  him,  added  no 
more. 

»•»••• 

A  horse  supernaturally  thin  in  har- 
ness astonishingly  smart  dragged  the 
party  toward  the  Spring  next  day,  and 
the  very  black  driver  interspersed  ob- 
servations to  his  beast — addressed  as 
"George" — with  comments  on  objects 
along  the  road. 

"You  see  'at  house,  gen'lemen?"  he 
asked,  pointing  to  a  forlorn  shack. 
"Some  murder  theah,  a  couple  yeahs 
ago.  Woman  cut  off  huh  husband's 
haid  with  an  axe  in  the  night — clean, 
plumb  off.  He's  been  hantin'  the 
house  eveh  since — screechin'  and 
carryin'  on  ev'y  night.  Nobody  won't 
go  nigh  it  afteh  dark — it's  broke  up 
the  prayeh-meetin'  up  heah  at  Shiloh 
Chu'ch,  for  the  membehs  won't  pass 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  149 

the  place.  Wash  Simmons,  forgittin', 
come  by  one  night  about  ten — and 
heah  was  that  man  standin'  by  the 
gate,  holdin'  his  haid  straight  out  in 
front  of  him  in  bofe  hands,  and  the 
mouth  a-yellin'.  Wash  ain't  speshu- 
ally  swift — not  as  a  reg'lar  rule — but 
he  sho'ly  got  some  speed  on  that 
night." 

"This,  you  see,"  said  Dr.  Hender- 
son, addressing  Mr.  Hunt,  "is  the  kind 
of  thing  I  meant  when  I  spoke  of  'soul' 
last  night.  It's  the " 

"Gosh!"  exclaimed  Mr.  Bloggs, 
glaring  back  at  the  haunted  hut,  * '  look 
at  that  face  at  the  window!" 

They  had  scarcely  turned  to  see, 
when  George  answered  a  tremendous 
cut  by  violently  bolting  forward.  All 
held  tight  to  the  carriage,  which 
lurched  and  swayed  at  high  speed  for 
a  matter  of  two-hundred  yards.  Then 
it  came  to  a  stop. 


150  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

"How  we  goin'  to  git  back  is  what 
I  want  to  know,"  said  the  driver  with 
his  teeth  chattering.  "You  don't  tell 
me  that  hant  has  taken  to  ^a^-time! 
I  ain't  no  ways  anxious  to  go  by  theah. 
But  how  we  goin'  to  git  back?" 

"Cut  around  through  a  field  if  you 
want  to,"  said  Mr.  Bloggs.  "We'll 
drive  George  back  there  and  hitch  him, 
and  then  go  through  that  house.  I'm 
not  so  darn  sure  what  is  in  there — I 
sure  never  saw  such  a  map  as  the  one 
that  grinned  out  of  that  window,  no, 
never! — but  I'm  for  going  through 
that  house." 

"I  may  as  well  say  that  I've  poor 
nerves,"  said  Mr.  Hunt.  "That  is 
really  why  I'm  down  here.  Of  course, 
it's  all  physical,  but  I  believe  I'll  walk 
around  with  the  driver." 

"All  right,"  Mr.  Bloggs  replied. 
"That's  good  sense.  You  do  that,  and 
leave  the  house  to  me  and  the  Doctor." 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  151 

They  found  absolutely  nothing, 
though  they  searched  every  nook  and 
corner  of  the  wretched  cabin.  There 
was  the  feel  that  nothing  living  had 
been  there  for  months.  After  ten  min- 
utes they  walked  toward  the  road. 
"I'd  like  to  know,"  said  the  Doctor, 
"if  a  darkey  who  had  never  heard  of 
the  murder  would  notice  anything  un- 
usual here  at  midnight.  One  of  them 
started  the  tale  and  screech  owls  or 
something  like  them  did  the  rest.  As 
for  the  face  at  the  window — I  didn't 
see  it,  for  I  was  holding  on  for  my  life 
— that  was  likely  due  to  the  fall  of  the 
sunlight  on  waves  in  the  glass.  That 
sort  of  thing,  you  know 

"Lord!"  broke  in  Mr.  Bloggs,  "look 
at  the  horse!" 

They  had  come  within  thirty  feet  of 
George,  and  beheld  him  settled  back 
and  straining  at  his  halter  in  evident 
terror.  His  eyes  glared  at  something 


152  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

apparently  ahead.  He  drew  long, 
shuddering  breaths. 

"Sick,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"Scared,"  said  Mr.  Bloggs,  "scared 
at  something,  and  scared  blue." 

They  untied  the  trembling  animal 
and  led  him  down  the  road,  where,  an 
eighth  of  a  mile  distant,  they  found 
Mr.  Hunt  and  a  very  silent  negro.  The 
wealth  of  the  Indies  could  not  have 
tempted  the  latter  again  to  pass  the 
house.  So  they  returned  to  the  hotel. 

That  night  their  chairs  were  again 
together,  and  the  talk  went  to  what  had 
happened  in  the  morning. 

"Of  course  it  was  ridiculous,"  the 
Doctor  said,  "our  searching  that 
shanty.  I  did  feel  an  ass." 

"I  really  can't  see,"  the  clergyman 
said,  "why  you  should.  Anything 
that  strikes  ignorant  people  as  mys- 
terious and  crawly — anything  ill-un- 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES          153 

derstood — ought,  I  think,  to  be  looked 
into  to  get  it  understood.  Haunted 
houses  are  a  persistent  proposition, — 
the  crowd  has  been  afraid  of  them  for 
hundreds  of  years,  and  you  remember 
Huxley's  saying  that  the  ghosts  are 
older  than  the  gods.  Whatever  there  - 
is  back  ought  to  be  dragged  out.  Why 
shouldn't  you  look?" 

"Answering  that,"  replied  Dr.  Hen- 
derson, "because  to  look  is  to  take  se- 
riously old  and  pestilent  superstitions 
— things  of  a  lower  level — which  ought 
to  be  left  to  die  and  helped  to  die.  To 
look  at  such  things  is  like  taking  off 
your  clothes  and  putting  on  a  breech- 
clout." 

"I  give  you  up,"  said  Mr.  Hunt. 
"You  are  one  of  those  scientifically- 
minded  people  that  I  just  give  up. 
You  are  all  for  looking  into  things 
and  probing  things  to  the  bottom,  but 
this  one  thing  you  won't  look  at  at  all. 


154  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

You  just  say  there's  nothing  in  it.  To 
explain  it  is  the  best  way  to  prove 
that,  I  should  say.  And  then  there  is 
something  like  a  psychical  world,  isn't 
there?" 

The  Doctor  smiled. 

"Do  you  remember,"  he  asked, 
"what  Thoreau  on  his  death-bed  said 
to  his  friend  Parker  Pillsbury?  Pills- 
bury  asked  him  if  he  saw  anything  on 
the  other  side — he  was  very  nearly 
gone — and  Thoreau  whispered,  'One 
world  at  a  time,  Parker.'  That's  what 
I  think;  and  I  notice  that  when  peo- 
ple fool  with  another  world  they  gen- 
erally go — well,  dippy.  I  haven't  any 
room  for  gods  or  ghosts.  All  I  know 
is — Being  Alive.  That  is  man's  ap- 
propriate job.  Anything  else  is — er — 
not  intended." 

* '  Delicious ! ' '  said  Mr.  Hunt.  «  *  Per- 
fectly delicious!  Of  course  without 
gods  nothing  can  be  'intended.'  " 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  155 

The  Doctor  looked  a  little  foolish, 
and  Mr.  Bloggs  took  a  hand. 

"I  guess,"  he  said,  ''that  there's 
just  about  as  much  goose-flesh  ready 
to  rise  on  people  as  there  ever  was.  I 
heard  a  man  say  in  a  lecture — it  was 
at  Pontiac — that  there  was  a  French 
woman  once — Madam  Somebody — who 
said  she  was  all  through  believing 
in  ghosts,  but  was  afraid  of  them  just 
the  same.  That's  about  the  way,  I 
reckon,  with  most  of  us.  I  did  have 
chills  down  my  spine  this  morning  and 
no  mistake — whether  it  was  ripples  in 
the  glass  or  not — and  I'm  not  so  dead 
sure  that  horse  was  sick.  I  guess  there 
is  a  whole  lot  of  things  we  don't  know 
about,  and  I  judge  they  ought  to  be 
looked  into.  But  not  by  most  of  us 
unless  we  come  up  against  them — like 
this  morning.  I  wouldn't  be  a  quitter 
when  that  happens — I'd  look,  all  right 
— but  as  for  hunting  up  such  things, 


156  MR.    SQUEM    AND 

that  isn't  for  me.  It's  for  some  one 
who  knows  more  than  me.  I  think 
there's  cussed  little  in  this  spiritualist 
business.  I  went  to  a  seance  once,  and 
my  brother  Wesley — so  they  said — 
talked  to  me  through  the  medium.  It 
was  all  about  blue  suspenders!  Yet 
I  think  even  such  things  ought  to  be 
looked  into — to  see  what  they  are." 

"You  are  two  against  one,"  said  the 
Doctor,  ''and  we  can't  get  together.  I 
say  the  way  to  kill  superstition  is  to 
ignore  it — and  the  way  to  perpetuate 
it  and  get  caught  in  it  is  to  attend  to 
it,  never  mind  with  what  high-sound- 
ing talk  about  'psychical  research' 
and  all  that.  Of  course  we  have  the 
legacy  of  the  past  in  us  somewhat — 
the  superstition  that  there  is  some- 
thing somewhere  beyond  being  alive, 
which  is  the  one  solid  fact  a  man  can 
go  on.  Better  let  our  current  Religion 
take  care  of  that  legacy.  It's  really 


SOME   MALE   TRIANGLES  157 

doing  it  mighty  well,  for  it  has  shaved 
the  other-world  business  down  to  two 
big  ghost-stories — one  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  behind  us  and  the  other  on 
ahead,  after  we're  dead — leaving  life 
here  for  living,  as  it  should  be  left. 
Good  blinders,  packing  all  the  mystery 
into  an  innocuous  block  which  doesn't 
interfere  with  life." 

"An  original  apologetic,"  said  Mr. 
Hunt,  with  an  edge  to  his  voice.  "I 
assume  that  you  think  that  there  is 
no  reality  for  us  outside  this  life  and 
this  world." 

"I  think  there  is  plenty  of  reality 
in  the  two,"  replied  the  Doctor, 
"plenty  for  anybody.  As  for  secrets 
beyond,  we  shall  make  those  out  only 
when  we  make  out  what  Mr.  Wells 
calls  'the  secret  of  the  jumping  cat 
within  the  human  skull' — which  will  be 
never. ' ' 

"  Speaking     of     cats,"     said     Mr. 


158  MR.    SQUEM   AND 

Bloggs,  as  the  three  rose  from  their 
chairs,  "we  had  one  once — his  name 
was  Seth — and  he  used  to  have  fits — 
the  worst  kind — and  when  he'd  get 
through  rearing  around  and  come  to 
himself  again,  he'd  back,  all  tuckered 
out  and  draggled,  into  a  corner — al- 
ways back,  understand.  Seemed  to 
think  something  had  tackled  him  from 
the  outside,  and  he  was  going  to  guard 
against  another  attack.  Maybe  that's 
the  way  it  is  here.  Maybe  I  had  some- 
thing like  a  fit — something  inside — 
after  the  coon's  story  this  morning, 
and  thought  it  was  outside." 

"I  think  it  very  likely,"  said  Dr. 
Henderson,  *  *  and  I  think  your  analogy 
would  cover  a  lot  of  other  cases,  too." 

"I'm  not  so  sure,  though,"  went  on 
Mr.  Bloggs,  "I'd  'a'  bet  I  saw  some- 
thing— I'd  almost  bet  now  I  saw  some- 
thing. Then  there  was  the  horse.  I'm 
not  so  darn  sure." 


SOME    MALE   TRIANGLES  159 

"That,  I  think/'  said  the  clergyman, 
"covers  more  cases  than  your  cat. 
The  hard  churchmen,  of  course" 
here  a  bow  to  the  Doctor — "say  bosh, 
and  some  people  talk  about  the  sub- 
liminal consciousness  or  dual  person- 
ality as  explanatory  of  strange  things 
which  come  bolting  into  life — which 
is  much  the  same,  I  think,  as  saying 
a  thing  'goes  by  electricity';  but  the 
real  creed  of  the  time  on  the  'super- 
normal'— which  is,  of  course,  just  old- 
fashioned  ghosts — is  in  your  admir- 
able phrase,  we  are — no  matter  how 
cool  and  emancipated — 'not  so  darn 
sure.'  " 

"It's  crawly,  anyway,"  said  Mr. 
Bloggs,  "crawly  anyway  you  look  at 
it.  Ghosts  inside  you  are  as  bad  as 
ghosts  outside.  Good  night." 

Mr.  Hunt,  slowly  preparing  for  bed, 
paused  and  addressed  himself. 


160  MR.    SQUEM 


"I  wonder,"  he  said,  "I  wonder  if 
this  Doctor  is  right,  and  there  is 
nothing  in  it  all.  I  wonder  if  my  Doc- 
tor was  right  with  his  big  medical 
word  for  what  happened  to  me.  I 
wonder  if  Mr.  Bloggs'  cat  explains 
everything. ' ' 

Then,  after  a  moment : 

UI  wonder  if  there's  something  out- 
side of  life  which  oughtn't  to  get  at 
life,  and  which  beats  life  down  if  it 
does." 


JSSSSBaasm  LIBRARY 


A     000038380 


